DHS Under Secretary Kusnezov visits NCITE
During his visit, Kusnezov held a fireside chat with NCITE students and staff, answering questions about his career and the nation's current threat landscape.
- published: 2022/12/19
- contact: NCITE Communications - NCITE
- email: ncite@unomaha.edu
Dimitri Kusnezov, under secretary for the the DHS Science and Technology Directorate, visited NCITE on Dec. 7. During the visit, he held a fireside chat with students at UNO's Maverick Landing.
“The world around us, as we look, is changing in ways that worry me,” Kusnezov told assembled students and staff during the fireside chat. “I worry about the world we’re leaving our kids.”
“We have a dearth of ideas, a glut of problems, and help is needed. Our job is to enable that as best as we can," Kusnezov said. As head of the S&T directorate, Kusnezov leads research, development, and innovation efforts that support the DHS mission.
During the visit, Kusnezov participated in technology demonstrations, learning more about NCITE's research into emerging threats.
Kusnezov also met with NCITE and UNO leadership, including Chancellor Joanne Li.
By Eva Burklund
NCITE student worker
As a theoretical physicist working in academia, Dimitri Kusnezov, Ph.D., focused on topics like quantum dissipation, Fourier’s Law, and spin dynamics.
Then he heard the call of public service.
“What I liked was understanding the world around me in mathematics,” Kusnezov said. “I could have lived there happily (in academia), but when I thought about the world of physics, and when I thought about the world ... a world with all of the issues that we have, physics was small.”
Today, Kusnezov serves as under secretary for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology (S&T) Directorate, leading research, development, and innovation efforts that support the DHS mission.
On Dec. 7, Kusnezov visited NCITE on the University of Nebraska at Omaha’s Scott Campus. During his visit, he met with Center leadership and participated in technology demonstrations related to emerging threats. Later in the day, he held a fireside chat with NCITE students and staff, answering questions about his career and the nation's current threat landscape.
Before entering public service, Kusnezov was a faculty member at Yale University, where he taught theoretical physics for more than a decade. During his time in academia, he published more than 100 articles and edited two books.
After entering government service, he held positions such as deputy under secretary for Artificial Intelligence and Technology at the Department of Energy, senior advisor to the Secretary of Energy, and chief scientist for the National Nuclear Security Administration. He became under secretary of S&T in September.
Throughout his fireside chat with NCITE students, Kusnezov talked about his academic past, how he approaches working in government, and his concerns for the future, particularly when it comes to technology.
“The world around us, as we look, is changing in ways that worry me,” Kusnezov said. “I worry about the world we’re leaving our kids.”
Kusnezov said he often thinks about the impact of the democratization of technology. Virtually anyone, he said, can innovate as technology becomes more accessible to the public, allowing the world to change in unexpected ways.
We have a dearth of ideas, a glut of problems, and help is needed.
Because of this and the complexity of problems we face today, there must be a focus on solving problems with people from other disciplines, he said, adding there “isn’t any single problem that the government cares about that can be handled by a single domain expert.”
In order to best understand how to anticipate new issues and resolve existing ones, it is also important for people to find new ways of thinking and new paths toward solutions, he said.
“There is no right or wrong answer,” he said. “You have to be willing to take risks and follow your instinct on what’s important.”
After following his own path from academia to government service, Kusnezov learned about the need for collaboration to get anything done in government. But, he said, that doesn’t mean everyone will be happy with a given course of action.
“There has never been a decision I’ve seen made that everyone is happy about,” he said. “You will have an enemies list, and that will be a measure of your impact.”
Making an impact also requires taking risks and encouraging others to do so. After making the leap to a job that deals with large, complex problems, Kusnezov wants to enable others – including the next generation of the counterterrorism workforce – to take big swings.
“I want to help where we can,” Kusnezov said. “We have a dearth of ideas, a glut of problems, and help is needed. Our job is to enable that as best as we can ... I want people to take risks, do things outside of the restrictions of their day jobs, and encourage people to work together and communicate.”