Soft Target Engineering to Neutralize the Threat Reality (SENTRY)
A Department of Homeland Security Center of Excellence
Established in 2021, SENTRY (Soft Target Engineering to Neutralize the Threat Reality) is a multi-institution Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Center of Excellence led by Northeastern University.
SENTRY strives to ensure the existence of safe, secure public spaces by creating functional and adaptable solutions to detect and mitigate targeted violence. The cornerstone of this vision is the Virtual Sentry Framework (VSF). SENTRY’s VSF aims to provide real-time decision support systems enabling actionable situational awareness leading to more effective threat assessment, preparedness, mitigation, and response for soft targets and crowded places (STCPs). This framework strives to lessen the security response burden on venue personnel and to provide essential security information in a specific, timely, and effective way. The VSF will require many critical components functioning in tandem to provide rapid threat detection and evidence-based recommendations for mitigating negative outcomes.
In support of this vision, the SENTRY mission is two-fold: to conduct stakeholder-informed research to better secure STCPs, and to educate the current and future homeland security workforce in this space.
For more information contact:
m.silevitch@northeastern.edu
Subsurface sensing and imaging systems, detection of explosives-related anomalies, engineered system development and engineering leadership