The rapid growth, proliferation and reliance on digital devices permeates our society, government and military. There is ongoing concern of malfeasance, cyberattacks and illegal penetration of devices exposing valuable information to our nation’s enemies. Once an incident occurs, the forensics process begins. But the need for digital forensics (DF) expertise, tools and techniques is now critical and will continue to increase exponentially with the advent of autonomous vehicles, more mobile devices, drones and connections to the Internet of Things, coupled with the rapid growth of computer espionage and cybercrime. According to Bureau of Labor Statistics, growth of 32% for digital forensics examiners armed with advanced tools and techniques is expected between now and 2028. Digital device growth greater than 26% will enable 43 billion active devices by 2023. To meet these demands, Florida International University (FIU—a Minority, Hispanic Serving Institution) in collaboration with three traditional Historically Black Universities; Grambling State U., Jackson State U., and Florida A&M U., propose to establish a new Digital Forensics Research Center, the Forensics Investigations Network in Digital Sciences (FINDS) Research Center of Excellence (COE) in response to the Army Research Office (ARO) solicitation, Research Area 2-Digital Forensics, and W911NF-17-S-0002-ARO-BAA, focusing on advanced research and education in emerging DF areas. DoD agencies, industry and national laboratories will partner to collaborate on research, technology transfer and mentoring. The FINDS Research Center will provide the U.S and the Army, with advanced capabilities in digital forensics.
We propose to build the COE at FIU in collaboration with HBCU researchers and students, National Forensic Science Technology Center (NFSTC), industry partners and DoD Labs via multidisciplinary, collaborative research projects in five DF theme areas—Analytical Methods/Evidence Processing Techniques; Forensic Fusion Models for Extracting Event Signatures; Analytical Method Processing and Big Data Digital Forensics; Drone Forensics and Ubiquitous Forensic Signatures; and Workforce Development, which will advance DoD digital forensic investigative capabilities and further improve decision-making capabilities. This research is aligned with solicitation subareas and incorporates advanced Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning (AI/ML) techniques where applicable. We anticipate the research will significantly advance applied forensic sciences by development of models and tools to understand and extract high-value, actionable information from digital data/devices across operational theaters. The Center will provide core capabilities in digital forensics, as a centralized development hub for advanced digital forensics tools, techniques, software, and hardware. The project will host digital forensic workshops bringing government, industry, and academia together to showcase research results, facilitate information exchanges, and address emerging challenges.
he CoE’s primary focus is to provide educational infrastructure in Digital Forensics, identifying novel directions and tools developed by students/faculty from ethnic minority backgrounds (Black/Hispanic students and women) to advance their careers in STEM areas. The Center will also serve as a foundation for developing research collaborations and capacity in participating HBCU institutions in partnership with federal institutions and laboratories (supporting letters attached) to create a pipeline for minority students to join the federal workforce. Our plan incorporates an investigative, synergetic, explicative, goal-driven, cross-cultured and ethnically inclusive spectrum of mentors committed to ensure a student research experience reflective and supportive of diversity. Our mentors are rich in government research/industry experience and national security applications. Students will encounter a wide variety of DoD work interlaced across cybersecurity, digital forensics, data science, and AI/ML areas. Collaboration between CARFS (traditional forensics), NFSTC and the FINDS Center will advance state-of-art practices through multi-disciplinary research. Co-PIs Dr. Almirall, CARFS Director, and Mr. Lothridge, Executive Director NFSTC, will take active roles in research collaborations, discovery and student mentoring. Over 100 minority students and faculty will be trained through these projects. We have over $600K cost sharing among the participating universities (FIU – lead, JSU, GSU, FAMU), demonstrating our commitment to this Center of Excellence and its sustainability.
FINDS Research Center of Excellence will foster research collaboration between HBCU/MSI universities, other universities, business, industry, and government laboratories and agencies. The goal is to expand interdisciplinary research at each of the universities and support Black and Hispanic graduate students, while actively nurturing participation of female and underrepresented students within these groups. More importantly, collaborations on this project will add significantly to building DF and AI research capacities at these universities, motivating minority students to pursue careers in DF and AI in government positions. For each of the proposed research tasks, we will enhance the research capacity at JSU, FAMU and GSU as well as help minority students to develop the required innovations needed in algorithms, and analyze their time and space complexities, implement and test them with real-world crime network datasets. There will be a total of 12 minority students and 4 faculty members who will benefit from this collaboration as a minimum for each project. ORNL and AFRL will be enhancing minority students’ education through mentoring and visits to their labs through internships and workshops in the implementation of high-performance algorithms for these areas. (Letters from these laboratories are attached). The internships for these minority students will include designing algorithms, implementing them on high-performance computers and the results will be published in peer-reviewed conferences or journals.
Research innovations will be disseminated to the broader community through research publications and participation of minority students and faculty in DF and AI related conferences. Research Collaborators will also develop comprehensive, advanced tools and techniques that can be used by any DoD agency, university or industry. By involving minority graduate students/faculty in the context of research capacity will lead to develop a strong research culture within the HBCU community and also increase student access and success in degree programs in the STEM/Data Science fields. Project findings will be integrated with undergraduate/graduate security related courses the investigators teach at their respective institutions.
We will follow a participatory action research approach in cooperation with minority students, faculty, industries, and federal agencies. We utilize both quantitative and qualitative research approaches in order to train these HBCU students who will be prepared to work at Federal agencies and labs. Researchers from NIST and AFRL will participate in these collaborations and provide a platform for internships for advanced training in the area of DF with the researchers training the participants in the development of optimal algorithms, design and implement prototypes and models at GSU/JSU/FAMU in collaboration with other researchers at FIU and ORNL and other laboratories. Minority students will be involved at every step of collecting data, designing, and implementing the projects. Results will be published in reviewed venues.