Campus competitions help agencies recruit students majoring in STEM

POSTED ON Mar 14, 2023

On March 1st, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas hosted a special ceremony at the DHS Headquarters in Washington, D.C. to mark the department’s achievements since it was set up 20 years ago.

Speaking at the event, President Joe Biden said that when the Senate vote was taken in the wake of 9/11, no one thought 260,000 people, including veterans who currently make up 20% of the DHS’s workforce, would be doing such an incredible job protecting land, infrastructure, maritime borders, and helping people cope with emergencies. The department recognized the 32,000 plank holders who joined DHS on its first day and continue to serve today.

According to a new report, the federal workforce has an average age of 47. Almost 29 percent (635,016) of employees are older than 55, while 8.3 percent (182,472) are younger than 30, an increase from 8.1 percent (compared to December 2020). The report demonstrates the growing age disparity in the information technology sector that shows the drop in the percentage of the federal workforce under 30 since 2010.

A few weeks before the DHS recognized the dedication of its workforce, Arizona State University’s Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering held design and engineering challenges in partnership with homeland security. The event’s theme was “Protecting America’s Public Access Areas.”

ASU News said the weekend-long event started with a keynote by George Naccara, a former Department of Homeland Security senior official. The challenge aimed to design responses to threats in churches, museums, schools, stadiums, and other public places. Organizers paired students with academic and industry mentors to solve problem scenarios and tackle real-life emergencies.

Before the winners were announced, Gregory Simmons, program manager for Minority Serving Institutions and Workforce Development at the Department of Homeland Security, talked about the future opportunities available to students in the department.

“The bottom line is that we want you to come and take jobs within Homeland Security,” he told ASU News.

The hackathon brought together teams from San Diego State University, the University of the District of Columbia, California State University, Los Angeles, and Northeastern University. ASU computer science students won five out of nine prize categories in the design series.

The winning team, Malindo, created an emergency response system that uses artificial intelligence in closed-circuit television cameras.

Last November, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) launched a competition for graduate and undergraduate students across the United States to participate in the 2023 Homeland Security Professional Opportunities for the Student Workforce to Experience Research (HS-POWER) internship program.

The DHS HS-POWER program, administered by S&T’s Office of University Programs, offers internships for students majoring in homeland security-related sciences, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines to gain quality experiences conducting DHS mission-relevant research.

Participants conduct research in or at DHS laboratories, DHS components and offices, and other federal research facilities while providing the opportunity to establish connections with DHS professionals.