Christopher Columbus Fellowship Foundation

Homeland Security Award Columbus Scholar 2010

Field of Cyber Security and Information Sharing

Law Enforcement National Data Exchange

FBI Criminal Justice Information Services
Clarksburg, West Virginia

To meet the nation's critical need to share criminal justice life-cycle information among agencies, the FBI, in concert with its local, State, tribal and Federal partners, created the Law Enforcement National Data Exchange(N-DEx). This nationally-scaled system has been designed to share criminal justice information across jurisdictional boundaries in a way not previously possible.

Building upon and complementing already successful sharing systems where they exist, the N-DEx system is a cornerstone of the United States Department of Justice's Law Enforcement Information Sharing Program. The effort also follows the mandate set forth by the "National Strategy for Law Enforcement Incident Sharing" established by the FBI's Criminal Justice Information Sharing (CJIS) Division Advisory Policy Board (APB). The CJIS APB is comprised of representatives from criminal justice agencies across the country.

The driving core of N-DEx is its main mission: "To enable the sharing of complete, accurate, timely, and useful information across jurisdictional boundaries and to provide new investigative tools that enhance the nation's ability to fight crime and terrorism." The overarching goal of N-DEx is to get the "right information" to the "right people" at the "right time."

With Raytheon as the lead contractor, N-DEx is being built and deployed in three increments. Each increment serves to bolster the system with additional capacity, services, and capabilities while allowing for lessons learned to be incorporated in the next one. This incremental approach also enabled the expedited fielding of an operational system to those on the front lines in the battles against crime and terrorism.

The N-DEx system reached a major milestone at the end of August 2010 by surpassing 100 million searchable records contained within the innovative and trailblazing project. N-DEx is being built and maintained at the FBI, CJIS Division in Clarksburg, West Virginia. Once fully deployed, the N-DEx system will be capable of containing in excess of one billion searchable records.

The Christopher Columbus Fellowship Foundation is honored to have had the assistance of the following distinguished individuals serving on the 2010 Homeland Security Award Evaluation Committee:

Stephen Cass, Special Projects Editor, Technology Review Magazine, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Mr. Cass studied experimental physics at Trinity College Dublin before relocating to the U.S. He has worked for the nature Publishing Group, IEE Spectrum, Discover Magazine, and is currently working for Technology Review, published by MIT. He has written about security, privacy, intelligence gathering and engineering design as well as aerospace and other science and technology topics. Mr. Cass is a member of the IEEE and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronauts.
Frances S. Ligler, D.Phil., D.Sc., U.S. Navy Senior Scientist for Biosensors and Biomaterials in the Center for Bio/Molecular Science and Engineering at the Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, D.C. Dr. Ligler has worked in the Center for Bio/Molecular Science and Engineering at the Naval Research Laboratory since 1985. Ten biosensors based on her inventions have been produced commercially, and her publications have over 6,700 citations. She is the 2009-2011 Chair of the Bioengineering Section of the National Academy of Engineering. Dr. Ligler was the recipient of the 2003 Homeland Security Award in the Biological, Radiological, Nuclear field.
Steven D. Webster, Vice President of Advanced Technology Research and Development, AgustaWestland North America (AWNA), Reston, Virginia. Mr. Webster joined AgustaWestland North America in January 2009. He is responsible for North American Research and Technology opportunities for both the Commercial and Department of Defense product lines. He comes to AWNA from Bell Helicopter Textron and brings over 24 years of rotorcraft technology development experience.