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NCITE Summer Research Teams Receive DHS Follow-On Funding

Research teams that worked with NCITE last summer have received follow-on funding from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Science and Technology Directorate to continue their work.

A graphic displaying the NCITE birdie logo alongside logos for Haskell Indian Nations University, Hampton University, and the University of Texas-San Antonio

Three research teams that worked with NCITE last summer have received follow-on funding from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate (DHS S&T) to continue their work.

The teams – hailing from Haskell Indian Nations University, Texas A&M University-San Antonio, and Hampton University – worked with NCITE as part of DHS S&T’s Summer Research Team (SRT) program. The program pairs students and early-career faculty from minority serving institutions (MSIs), including historically Black colleges and universities, tribal colleges and universities, and Hispanic-serving institutions, with DHS’s Centers of Excellence.

The NCITE SRTs included:

  • Haskell Indian Nations University
    • Project: “Pilot Training Program for Tribal Public Safety Officers”
    • The Haskell Indian Nations University team is developing a drone and geographic information system (GIS) pilot program for public safety officers to assist in deterring crime and domestic terrorism on tribal land.
  • Texas A&M University-San Antonio
    • Project: “Exploring Frontline Interactions with Sovereign Citizens and Anti-Government Extremists: Insights into De-escalation and Procedural Justice”
    • The Texas A&M-San Antonio team generated a corpus of publicly available records and transcripts of encounters between people with anti-government/anti-authoritarian beliefs and government actors (e.g. law enforcement officers, prosecutors, and judges) throughout the criminal-legal process.
  • Hampton University
    • Project: “Enhancing State-Level Election Policy: An Analysis of Legislative Approaches to Secure and Protect Elections and their Impact on Domestic Terrorism”
    • The Hampton University team created an original dataset recording state-level legislative attempts to ensure safe and secure elections across the United States from 2011-2020. Their project seeks to examine the impact of election security legislation on terrorism targeting the U.S. government and domestic terrorism.

They were three of 19 teams selected to receive a total of $1,783,646 from DHS S&T.