New "Shaping the Future" Video Series with President Gold Spotlights How the University of Nebraska (NU) System Creates Impact

The University of Nebraska (NU) System today announced a new monthly video series, hosted by President Jeffrey P. Gold, M.D., in which he holds conversations with researchers, students, and educators across NU’s four campuses who are making a difference in healthcare, national defense and security, agriculture and other important areas.

The “Shaping the Future” video series kicks off its inaugural interview with Gina Ligon, Ph.D., an organizational psychologist and the director of the National Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology and Education Center, or NCITE. NCITE is based at the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO) and is the nation's leading academic center for studying emerging terrorism threats.

Ligon is one of the reasons that the Department of Homeland Security decided to create NCITE in Nebraska. In the interview, she discusses how she became involved in counterterrorism, why NCITE’s work is important to Nebraskans and all Americans, the types of projects that NCITE works on and how they work with students to bolster the workforce for the Department of Homeland Security and other organizations working to keep our country safe.

“You have threats coming from people coming across the border, you have threats that are homegrown, you have threats from people plotting in overseas nations trying to hurt us. What NCITE does is provide apolitical analysis of these emerging threats,” Ligon said in the interview.

“Cyber is an incredibly important domain for terrorists right now. They are using it to hold companies hostage for ransomware. They're using it to get personally identifiable information about critical figures, and all kinds of nefarious work.”

NCITE has students who support research efforts in tandem with faculty members. For example, cybersecurity students who are looking at cyber as an attack vector for terrorists both inside and outside the country.

“Their jobs are to be able to look at the university system, to see what kinds of attacks we're getting, and help us come up with ways to combat them,” Ligon said.

President Gold noted that university faculty like Ligon are on the leading/cutting edge of critical fields such as agriculture, engineering, early childhood education, national defense, and cancer research and treatment. Ligon and others like her are making a statewide, national and global impact in their areas of expertise. The "Shaping the Future" video series will provide Nebraskans a chance to hear directly from these faculty members—as well as from staff, students, alumni and community leaders.

"Whether it’s educating our future workforce, making groundbreaking discoveries or supporting Nebraska communities, our faculty, staff and students are making an impact in countless ways every day,” Gold said. "I am thrilled to showcase their extraordinary work to our university community and all Nebraskans.”