Columbia University's MURI War Machine Connection

As a Defense Industry Daily web site posting of May 2, 2007 noted, the U.S. “Department of Defense Multi-disciplinary University Research Initiative [MURI] is a multi-agency Department of Defense program” that supports university research teams, which is “especially interested in efforts” that “hasten the transition of basic research findings to practical applications.” In April 2007, the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research awarded 10 MURI contracts, worth about $60 million, to research teams at 29 U.S. universities. Among the U.S. universities where research teams are working on these new MURI war research contracts are Harvard University, MIT, Princeton University, Brown University, Northwestern University, University of Michigan, Stanford University, Boston University, University of Colorado, University of Virginia, University of Minnesota, George Mason University and Columbia University.

Columbia University is a team member institution on University of Minnesota researcher Richard Kiehl’s “Biologically Assembled Quantum Electronic Arrays” MURI project. Columbia University is also a team member institution on George Mason University researcher Anup Ghosh’s “Autonomic Recovery of Enterprise-Wide Systems After Attack or Failure with Forward Correction” MURI project. In addition, Columbia University is a team member institution on University of Pennsylvania researcher Sampath Kannan’s “Foundational and Systems Support for Quantitative Trust Management” MURI project.

MIT is the lead institution for MURI’s “Cognitively Compatible and Collaboratively Balanced Human-Robot Teaming in Urban Military Domains” project on which Stanford University, Vanderbilt University, University of Washington and University of Massachusetts-Amherst are also team member institutions. Research teams at MIT, University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign, University of Minnesota, Pennsylvania State University, University of Rochester, University of California-San Diego, Carnegie-Mellon University and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute are also working on MURI’s “Exploiting the Documented Plasticity of the Adult Brain to Create Superior Warfighters in Fast-Paced Close quarter Combat” war research projects.

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