The DHC-crest center at nccu aims to advance institutional research and educational capabilities in stem disciplines related to DHS at nccu and strengthen the pipeline for the advancement of…

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate awarded a $971,600 Cooperative Agreement to North Carolina Central University (NCCU) under the Scientific Leadership Awards (CFDA 97.062) program. The five-year award, effective July 7, 2023, aims to advance NCCU's institutional research and educational capabilities in STEM disciplines related to DHS. Key objectives include strengthening the pipeline for underrepresented minorities in DHS STEM fields, establishing NCCU as a premier institution in DHS detector science, and generating research outcomes with long-term impact. The award will support a multi-faceted program including student recruitment, academic enrichment, mentoring, and hands-on research opportunities for NCCU students, leveraging NCCU's partnership with the DHS SENTRY Center of Excellence.

The DHC-crest center at nccu aims to advance institutional research and educational capabilities in stem disciplines related to DHS at nccu and strengthen the pipeline for the advancement of underrepresented minorities in DHS stem disciplines. This will be done in partnership with the sentry COE and will leverage the assets of both institutions to enable significant increases in minority participation in material science and at the same time produce research and educational outcomes that have a significant impact beyond the time limits of this funding. The vision of this proposal is to establish nccu as a premier institution in DHS detector science with the accompanying infrastructure and human capital necessary for such a transformation. The research thrust at the core of this proposal is high selectivity and high sensitivity label free biochemical sensor for continuing detection based on quantum confinement. The detection principle allows for continuous monitoring without detector refreshing, which could be a significant contribution to DHS. The detector is in many ways similar to the sentry detector, which continuously detects traces of triacetone triperoxide or tatp. That will allow our team to get valuable experience working first on the elements of the sentry detector and later incorporating our detector into the sentry platform. The proposed partnership addresses a key educational challenge manifested in the low participation of underrepresented minorities in material science. The vision is not merely to provide opportunities for nccu students to participate in the sentry program and thereby correct such a disparity. The intellectual merit of this proposal lies in the quality of the opportunities provided and the outcomes that will result. The four-tiered plan consists of a) recruitment strategies targeted at the best and brightest high school and community college transfer students in the region by highlighting the central role of DHS stem science in the 21ST century, b) academic enrichment programs focused on DHS stem science, c) effective mentoring program which will pair minority participants in the nccu with mentors at sentry and nccu, and d) productive research experiences at the frontiers of DHS-stem science supported by close mentoring by both nccu and sentry faculty and researchers at all levels. The underlying framework that will enable productive research is the broad and deep links between the individual research thrusts and ongoing projects in the sentry. These links will leverage the expertise and resources in the sentry to generate important scientific advances in the short term as well as create sustainable research programs at nccu in these areas at the end of five years. The key scientific challenge that is addressed in this proposal is the ability to control tunneling between a targeted analyte and detector nanostructure and to use that phenomenon for analyte detection. Many technical problems must be solved to achieve that goal, which will expose students and faculty to fields of electronics, data acquisition systems, machine learning, artificial intelligence, computer simulations, and making algorithms, and software for data analysis and display of data. The facilities and expertise available via our partners at sentry would be critical for US here at nccu to be able to transition to a level where these achievements can be utilized in actual devices. The project will create a multidisciplinary DHS science community at nccu that will increase public awareness of the field, recruit talented minority students to this field, prepare these students for future careers in the field through comprehensive academic and research programs, and increase rates of matriculation of minority students from nccu to DHS science doctoral programs at sentry and elsewhere. This partnership will enable US to attain a higher level of research capability, enabling US to sustain a national reputation.