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ASU center to focus on U.S. issues of security

Chief Air Force scientist will direct new institute

by John Yantis - Nov. 3, 2010 12:00 AM

The Arizona Republic

Arizona State University will create a new institute that aims to find solutions to national defense, homeland security, counterterrorism and cyber-warfare challenges, officials announced Tuesday.

Still unnamed, the institute will be headed by Werner Dahm, chief scientist for the U.S. Air Force for the past two years. Dahm, who has been at the University of Michigan since 1985, joined the ASU engineering faculty on Monday. He will help establish the institute, which officials say could open within five years.

The bulk of the center's funding will come from federal grants, Arizona's aerospace and defense industry, and philanthropic groups that recognize the growing role of security in bolstering peace and economic vibrancy, Dahm said.

It's part of ASU President Michael's Crow's New American University initiative, which encourages university departments to work together to address societal ills.

"We're going to be taking a lot of activities that are already going on individually within ASU . . . and we're going to knit those together into a coherent institute," Dahm said.

Rick Shangraw, ASU's senior vice president for Knowledge Enterprise Development, said the institute will fit well with the state's well-established aerospace and defense industry.

"(That's) really good for Arizona," he said, adding he hopes the institute will open sooner.

The center will tackle issues from national defense and homeland and border security to international piracy, weapons trafficking, counterfeiting, narcotics smuggling and cybercrime, Dahm said.

Much emphasis will be placed on studying legal and policy issues and root social causes that affect security challenges, including energy use, religious extremism and global disparities, Dahm said.

"The institute will provide real-world, technology-derived solutions to the genuine national and security problems we face," he said.

"Unless you understand those underlying root causes correctly, then very often you're trying to address a symptom rather than a root cause."

ASU will focus on getting funding in areas that are its strength, including renewable energy and sensor technology, Shangraw said.

While there are a number of U.S. universities that feature institutes that focus on security policy, ASU's will have a larger scale and scope, Dahm said.

Historically, universities faced challenges making inroads in the defense and national-security sector because most work in the area is done by big defense contractors, Shangraw said.

Dahm was hired at ASU as a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering in the School for the Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy, one of ASU's Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering.

Dahm was a research engineer in the Transonic Wind Tunnel Section of the Propulsion Wind Tunnel Facility at the U.S. Air Force Arnold Engineering Development Center.

His primary research and teaching focus has been fluid dynamics, turbulent flows, combustion and propulsion, and he holds several U.S. patents in these areas.