24STADA00002

As the center of excellence for homeland security in the Arctic, the Arctic Domain Awareness Center (ADAC) will address challenges across the homeland security enterprise (HSE), adding Arctic to its name to represent its expanded strategic vision.
ADAC will draw on its experience operating the previous Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Arctic Regional Center to create an interdisciplinary nexus of strategic leaders and partners capable of applying expertise throughout the HSE.
Guided by its team of expert researchers, educators, workforce development professionals, transfer and transition experts, and community partners, ADAC is ready to respond to the challenges confronting DHS in the rapidly changing Arctic domain.

Vision: Addressing rapid changes through technology, innovation, and collaboration (Arctic).
Mission: Create tools, technologies, knowledge products, and highly qualified persons that will serve the homeland security enterprise to improve Arctic homeland security.

To fulfill its mission, the center will use cutting-edge approaches to conduct critical research needed to prepare for and implement an effective response to the challenges DHS faces in the Arctic domain.
It will do so by bringing together an array of geographically dispersed, strategically selected partners from academia, federally-funded research and development centers, industry, non-profits, tribal, and other federal, state and local governments with Arctic expertise.
Through these partnerships, ADAC will stimulate innovative research ideas and projects, expand workforce development and educational activities, and promote center engagements that produce tools, technologies, knowledge products, and trained personnel.

Each project and activity will involve students or trainees while yielding a product for transfer and transition, all to empower HSE personnel and serve the DHS mission.
ADAC's selected research and education projects will create state-of-the-art technologies to fill knowledge gaps and solve the toughest challenges in the Arctic.
The selected projects aim to transition technology products that include buoys and drones to monitor environmental change from chronic or acute changes disasters, tools such as risk assessment evaluation methods for infrastructure and methodologies to improve decision making for risk evaluators and responders, models for failed oil well management and the integration of a diverse energy portfolio, and knowledge products such as refereed publications, literature reviews, feasibility studies, and rapport reports.

Educational, workforce development, and community engagement programs include an integrated multi-institution interdisciplinary Arctic security graduate degree, a center-led ADAC student fellowship program incorporating fellows on active projects, tribal engagement and liaising, and training programs created to meet specific HSE needs.
The knowledge products will be disseminated into the scientific literature and HSE through papers, presentations, videos, and workshops coordinated and promoted by the center.
The technology products will be transferred and transitioned to DHS components and industrial partners in close collaboration with the UAA Technology Transfer Office (TTO).

Moreover, ADAC will create an Arctic testbed to support project development and facilitate uptake and transition to practice by conducting rigorous, transparent, and replicable testing of scientific theories, computing tools, and new technologies while embracing harsh Arctic conditions and challenges.
The diversity, coordination, and collaboration of ADAC and its collaborators, and its close partnerships with DHS and the HSE at-large, will yield fresh ideas, exemplary project applicability, and effective transitions, all to the benefit of the HSE in the Arctic.

University Of Alaska Anchorage

97.061 - Centers for Homeland Security

Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) [DHS]

Alaska United States

State-Wide

ST-ADA-23-003

Amendment Since initial award the total obligations have increased 100% from $4,600,000 to $9,200,000.