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Texas A&M Kingsville Develops New Program With $700,000 Grant
Posted: Feb 1, 2013 4:31 PM by Morgan Frances - mfrances@kristv.com
Updated: Feb 1, 2013 6:41 PM
KINGSVILE - Border security is a topic that seems to always be in the news and now it's hot topic in the classroom at Texas A&M University Kingsville. The Department of Homeland Security awarded A&M Kingsville a $700,000 grant for engineering students to develop and integrate new technologies that will help to protect the U.S. Borders. The students will get hands-on experience with newest technology used in securing our borders.
Dr. Selahattin Ozcelik, Professor and Department Chair of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering said, "When you look at the amount of information collected it's huge; how can we utilize that information and pinpoint and identify certain threats."
Students at A&M Kingsville will use technologies like unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), such as drones, wireless sensor networks and data mining to study who's coming in to the U.S., who's going out, and what they're bringing with them.
Nicholas Haliscak is one of the first students in the course and is particularly interested in the programming side of things. "It's one thing to merely have a design but when you tell a design what you want it to do and actually watch it do it there's no feeling quite like that," he said, "It's almost like playing God in its own way."
Faculty will select 10 students a year for this minor program in security engineering; and with the university's close proximity to the border, the students won't have a problem securing a job come graduation.
"The border is a good start at any rate because it's a good testing ground for taking things other places," said Haliscak.
While the technology students use in Dr Ozcelik's class could be used in other job markets, Ozcelik says the opportunity to engineer a safer border is incredible experience.
"I don't think it's a bad deal," Ozcelik said.
Ozcelik said the ten students accepted into the program will receive about $7,000 in scholarships and a paid summer internship.
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