By Lucia Allen

The US Department of Homeland Security recently awarded Northeastern with a prestigious $10 million grant for Explosive Detection, Mitigation and Response to prevent and diminish explosive-related terrorist attacks, according to a Northeastern press release.

Michael Silevitch, an engineering professor who is now co-director for awareness and localization of explosive threats, said the research will be co-led by Northeastern and the University of Rhode Island.

“We acquired this grant through a competitive proposal process, with about 60 other schools submitting concept papers,” Silevitch said.

Concept papers were not required, but were encouraged for initial feedback, he said. It was filtered down to a few proposals, and sites were visited, he said.

There are a number of other university partners, Silevitch said, and they have essentially built upon the existing Gordon center.

“How do we, as a country, deal and respond to terrorist threats that include terrorist suicide bombers, and school bomb threats,” Silevitch said. “In addition to what we’re doing in the field of homeland security, we need a component of academic research. We’re looking at ways to develop a basic research method to detect, mitigate and respond to explosive-related terrorist threats.”

It is long range research, lasting five to 10 years, with the hope of near-term results, Silevitch said. The researchers are hoping to see products within the next two to three years.

“[We want] breakthrough science and engineering, not just evolutionary,” Silevitch said. “We hope to keep plugging away until