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Our recent poll with The Harris Poll found that 81% of Americans are concerned about the security of our #CriticalInfrastructure and its recovery after a cyberattack. In collaboration with public and private operators, we're working across critical infrastructure sectors to test, identify, and remedy their #cyber vulnerabilities. #NationalSecurity
Abigail Gertner’s career has centered on artificial intelligence. The department manager of AI-Enhanced Discovery and Decisions at MITRE talked with Karina Wright about having a front row seat to AI’s evolution. She has watched artificial intelligence (AI) grow from a primarily academic study with few practical applications to today’s vast number of uses. “When I started out, we were developing rule-based systems and belief propagation algorithms to make inferences on probabilistic graphical models. The computing hardware didn’t exist to support the kind of large-scale model development we can do today.” The turning point, Gertner says, came with “the availability of GPUs [graphics processing units] for training larger AI models, along with the massive amount of data available on the internet.” Both led to the rapid progress in machine learning (computers learning models based on data) we’ve seen in recent years, “moving the field forward to solve a lot of the problems AI aimed to solve decades ago.”
Ground-breaking MITRE research quantifies real-world flight crew performance on critical safety maneuvers—with broad applications for enhancing overall aviation safety. If an aircraft stalls in mid-air, how long does it take a pilot to execute the multi-step recovery process, and was that process performed correctly? What if an onboard system alerts the pilot that another aircraft is too close? How quickly can the pilot take the steps necessary to avoid a collision? Capturing specifics like these has the potential to transform aircraft equipment design and certification, flight procedure development, and pilot training in ways that enhance overall flight safety. As the longtime operator of the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) federal R&D center, MITRE understands just how important those goals are. “The aviation industry has never been able to obtain broad measures of what actually happens when safety issues arise during commercial flights,” explains Valerie Gawron, Ph.D., an expert in human-centered engineering. “We’ve been able to measure pilot performance in a simulator, but that’s quite different from the real world, when the pressure is on to respond quickly and correctly at a moment’s notice.”
GovExec named Yosry Barsoum, MITRE vice president, a 2024 Federal 100 award winner. The Federal 100 awards recognize leaders from private industry, academia, and government who convey how government can better leverage technology to serve its citizens. Under Barsoum’s leadership, his team elevates mission impact for the federal government by working on the toughest challenges across the homeland security and cybersecurity enterprise. Barsoum leads two MITRE-operated federally funded R&D centers (FFRDCs): the Homeland Security Systems Engineering and Development Institute™ (HSSEDI) for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and the National Cybersecurity FFRDC for the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). In 2023, Barsoum’s team notably enhanced our nation’s resilience by advancing verifiable elections, accelerating criminal investigations with analytics, and releasing new cyber tools into the public domain.
As noted in the intelligence community’s 2023 annual threat assessment, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is strategically posturing to be able to execute a sustained, widespread attack against U.S. critical infrastructure by 2027, if called on by their leader. “The threat has escalated dramatically,” said Charles Clancy, Ph.D., senior vice president and chief technology officer, MITRE. “The CCP’s primary targets are assessed to be energy, transportation, communications, and water infrastructure with the intent to destabilize quality of life systems.” Clancy was a witness at the Feb. 7, 2024, U.S. House Homeland Security Subcommittee hearing on Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Protection hearing titled “Securing Operational Technology: A Deep Dive into the Water Sector.” Clancy noted, “Much of the current policy debate is focused on incremental change that while all positive, can only move the needle so much. Better resourcing federal agencies involved in this ecosystem helps. More collaboration and information sharing helps. But not enough. “The scale of the threat requires critical infrastructure operators to prepare and respond more like they would to a major natural disaster. They need to establish procedures to sever their control systems from the internet, and practice disconnected operations. Continuity of operations plans are needed, and federal agencies should help wargame and exercise these functions, so when a CCP attack comes, we are prepared."
At MITRE, we tackle some of the biggest threats facing our nation and the world. We take on large-scale challenges in cybersecurity, defense, health, aviation, enterprise transformation, and more. We discover new possibilities, create unexpected opportunities, and lead in the advancement of cutting-edge technologies. We’re driven by our clear and essential mission: solving problems for a safer world. As a not-for-profit company, we bring our objective insights and innovative approach to our work with no commercial conflicts of interest. Our culture promotes collaboration, risk-taking, speed, adaptability, and grace and respect. Looking for extraordinary opportunities, working alongside mission-driven people from diverse backgrounds? Find your next career with MITRE.
Sandra Medrano Bonilla’s birthday falls on July 3. A first-generation American citizen of Salvadoran heritage, she recalls being “a very patriotic kid.” Her mother took her shopping every year for birthday outfits adorned with stars and stripes. Her family’s immigrant experience shaped in her a strong drive to succeed. “I have the great privilege of being born in this country, and I see how hard my parents worked,” she says. “I want to honor their sacrifices and take full advantage of my opportunities.” The early-career professional contributes to our mission and culture through her work in veteran suicide prevention, as well as her leadership in our Latin-American Network. Medrano Bonilla’s work includes data analysis for a Veterans Administration (VA) grant program that provides resources toward community-based suicide prevention efforts for U.S. veterans. She’s creating dashboards to enable better decision-making and make it easier for grantees to improve their programs—and their support to those who served our nation.
Technology has the potential to enhance our travel experiences throughout the surface transportation ecosystem, as well as improve safety, reliability, and equity. However, user attitudes – from reticence toward AI to the importance of sustainability – underscore the need for planning. A new MITRE-Harris Poll on transportation found that U.S. residents believe their transportation experience will improve in the next 10 years, with 40% saying it will get better, compared to just 23% who believe it will get worse. “America’s transportation future is at an inflection point,” said Kerry Buckley, vice president, MITRE, Center for Integrated Transportation. “The decisions we make in the coming years set the course for decades to come. Though users are optimistic, that also means high expectations. We need integrated planning across federal, state, and local governments; industry; academia; and trade groups to achieve these ambitious goals.”
As the Intelligence Community (IC) calls for more diversity of thought to address an increasingly complex, diverse, and dynamic threat landscape, the cognitive differences observed in neurodistinct groups such as those with autism, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and dyslexia can be advantageous for intelligence work. Individuals with these neurodistinct conditions bring exceptional strengths in areas such as visual processing and cognitive originality, comprise a considerable and growing portion of the general population, and remain underemployed compared to their neurotypical counterparts. In other words, the neurodiverse community represents a potentially valuable and largely underappreciated source of new talent for the IC. We recommend the IC pursue an intentional and purposeful neurodiverse talent program to support the intelligence mission. This includes better understanding the composition and needs of the IC’s existing neurodistinct workforce; increasing awareness and acceptance of neurodiversity within IC organizations; and increasing recruiting, hiring, and retention of neurodistinct talent. Read more research and analysis for the Intelligence Community in our Intelligence After Next paper series.
To further support access to global health services, the Swinfen Charitable Trust, UVA Health, Telemedicine AI, and MITRE announced a new collaboration to enable medical cyber infrastructure protection assessments and testing for Swinfen’s next-generation telemedicine platform, OpenTelemed. This collaboration also will incorporate educational resources and cyber technology training for the Trust’s extensive network of health professionals across 427 hospitals and clinics in 96 countries. “Easy and secure access to medical care is essential, and with this collaboration, we are enabling more doctors to connect with each other across the globe so they can safely bring their patients the best medical care wherever they are,” said Charles Clancy, senior vice president, MITRE Labs, and chief technology officer, MITRE. “Swinfen has spent decades building a trusted network for doctors, especially in remote and rural areas, and we’re honored to be a part of the solution to keep that network secure.”