Story by Carling Uhler, ODNI Office of Strategic Communications
Photos by Jessica Hrabosky, ODNI Office of Strategic Communications
Gina Ligon, the Director of the National Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology and Education Center, a Department of Homeland Security Center of Excellence for terrorism prevention and counterterrorism research, visited the National Counterterrorism Center highlighting the research center’s mission and growing diversity of skills and techniques available across the organization.
NCITE’s work is organized around four themes: countering terrorism and targeted violence; bolstering suspicious activity reporting; improving prevention efforts; and strengthening the homeland security workforce. Based at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, the NCITE consortium includes more than 60 researchers from 26 different institutions across the U.S. and in Europe.
They take an interdisciplinary approach to solving homeland security and challenges and are force-multipliers for U.S. counterterrorism practitioners through their development of cutting-edge research methods and technological advances to bolster the counterterrorism fight.
NCTC has been an NCITE stakeholder since the center of excellence launched in 2020.
In a whirlwind three-day visit, Ligon visited the NCTC operations center, explored the museum, attended briefings, observed technology demos from officers across the center, and met with NCTC Director Christy Abizaid and Executive Director Abby Johnson.
Ligon also found time to share substantive recommendations on research gaps and sparked ideas for future joint events. The visit reinforced the value of the NCTC-NCITE partnership and opened new doors for NCITE’s work to bolster the counterterrorism mission, whether that is to track current events and terrorism trends, implement technical efforts to curb terrorists’ activity, or to expand workforce development and public engagement.