May 19, 2010 | Eli Freund - School of Engineering

UConn Named a Center of Excellence

The University of Connecticut was named a National Center of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Research (CAE-R) during the spring. The designation, for the academic years 2010-2015, was announced by the National Security Agency and the Department of Homeland Security.

The University of Connecticut was named a National Center of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Research (CAE-R) during the spring. The designation, for the academic years 2010-2015, was announced by the National Security Agency and the Department of Homeland Security. UConn is the first institution in Connecticut to receive the designation.

According to Dr. John Chandy, associate professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering, who prepared the application, UConn’s selection as a CAE-R reflects the strong core of faculty and graduate research, professional engagement, and outreach ongoing at UConn in areas related to information security, encryption, and the like. Selection as a CAE-R qualifies UConn to vie for a variety of scholarships and fellowships.

The CAE-R designation resulted from a joint application submitted by an interdisciplinary faculty team that comprises faculty from the Electrical & Computer Engineering Department, Computer Science & Engineering Department, and the Department of Operations and Information Management (OPIM) within the School of Business. The team will receive an official certificate during the 14th annual conference of the Colloquium for Information Systems Security Education in June.

With news of the successful application, Dr. Chandy noted the University has founded an associated center called the “Center for Information Assurance and Computer Systems Security (CIACSS).” The Center is open to all UConn researchers and is the primary research home for all areas of information assurance. The CIACSS is organized into five thematic areas: authorization and access control; cryptography and cryptanalysis; data security and privacy; information fusion and data mining for homeland security; and trustable computing systems. For details of the center, contact Dr. Chandy at chandy@engr.uconn.edu or (860) 486-5047.

Members of the CIACSS include Drs. Reda Ammar, Steven Demurjian, Aggelos Kiayias, Laurent Michel, Alexander Russell, Zhijie Shi, Alexander Shvartsman and Bing Wang of Computer Science & Engineering; Drs. John Chandy, Yunsi Fei, Bahram Javidi, Krishna Pattipati, Mohammad Tehranipoor, Lei Wang and Peter Willett of Electrical & Computer Engineering; and Drs. Xue Bai, Robert Garfinkel, Ram D. Gopal, Wei-Kuang Huang, Robert Johnson, Manuel Nunez and Dmitry Zhdanov of the Department of Operations and Information Management.