Carnegie Mellon Collaborates With Taiwanese Government To Create New Security Technology Research Program

July 14, 2006
Contact: Chriss Swaney
(412) 268-5776

PITTSBURGH—Carnegie Mellon University has signed a $3 million agreement with the Taiwanese government, establishing a new research program and educational outreach initiative.

Research at the government-sponsored International Collaboration for Advancing Security Technology (iCAST-Carnegie Mellon) will focus on a wide variety of security issues, including developing software assurance tools, metrics to measure the effectiveness of intrusion-detection systems and secure video surveillance networks, according to Tsuhan Chen, a professor of electrical and computer engineering and co-director of iCAST-Carnegie Mellon.

Twenty Taiwanese researchers are scheduled to visit Carnegie Mellon to begin work on a variety of security-related projects designed to significantly improve both U.S. and Asian advanced security technologies.

“Signing this agreement reaffirms our ongoing relationships with Taiwan,” said Carnegie Mellon Provost and Senior Vice President Mark S. Kamlet. “We will work closely with Taiwanese officials to identify key research opportunities.” Pradeep K. Khosla, dean of Carnegie Mellon’s College of Engineering, said the agreement is an important part of the university’s strategy to compete and participate in the global marketplace.

Besides performing security research, an additional seven Taiwanese professionals will take a curriculum of security courses offered by Carnegie Mellon’s CERT Coordination Center, part of the university’s Software Engineering Institute. CERT offers public and private training courses for technical staff and managers of computer security incident response teams, as well as system administrators and other technical personnel interested in network security.

The researchers will take a variety of courses, including information security for technical staff, computer forensics, advanced incident handling and a workshop involving risk management exercises. The iCAST-Carnegie Mellon program marks the university’s second research collaboration with Taiwan.

In 2003, Carnegie Mellon established ties with the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) and National Chiao-Tung University (NCTU) in Hsinchu, a research-rich area south of Taipei. Funding of $1 million each year for the next three years was provided by the National Science Council of Taiwan. A similar program also exists at the University of California, Berkeley.

About Carnegie Mellon: Carnegie Mellon is a private research university with a distinctive mix of programs in engineering, computer science, robotics, business, public policy, fine arts and the humanities. More than 10,000 undergraduate and graduate students receive an education characterized by its focus on creating and implementing solutions for real problems, interdisciplinary collaboration, and innovation. A small student-to-faculty ratio provides an opportunity for close interaction between students and professors. While technology is pervasive on its 144-acre campus, Carnegie Mellon is also distinctive among leading research universities for the world-renowned programs in its College of Fine Arts. For more, see www.cmu.edu.