Critical Infrastructure Resilience Institute (CIRI)

funded by the Department of Homeland Security

researchers: David M. Nicol, PI; Rebecca Slayton (Cornell); Jason Liu (Florida International University); Sean Burke, Stephen Flynn, and Matthias Ruth (Northeastern University); David Manz (Pacific Northwest National Lab); Herb Lin (Stanford); Sachin Shetty (Tennessee State); Danny Reible (Texas Tech University); Noah C. Dormady (The Ohio State University); John Villasenor (UCLA); Kathleen Tierney (University of Colorado Boulder); Santanu Chaudhuri, Maria Jaromin, Jay Kesan, William P. King, and Marianne Winslett (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign); Howard Kunreuther and Erwann Michel-Kerjan (University of Pennsylvania); Adam Rose (USC); and Bob Freitag, Himanshu Grover, Guillaume S. Mauger, and Eric Salathé (University of Washington)

The Critical Infrastructure Resilience Institute (CIRI) is conducting research and education activities that enhance the resiliency of the nation’s critical infrastructures and the businesses and public entities that own and operate those assets and systems. CIRI is funded by a $20 million, five-year grant from the Department of Homeland Security. It is led by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with collaborators from other U.S. universities and national labs.

With an emphasis on outputs-oriented research, education and workforce development, and early and continuous engagement with end users and homeland security practitioners, CIRI is exploring the organizational, policy, business, and technical dimensions of critical infrastructure’s dependence on cyber assets. CIRI is examining how computer hardware and software both contribute to and threaten resiliency and how industry makes decisions about cyber assets that contribute to resilience.

A significant focus of CIRI is on transitioning of research outputs for use by DHS operational components, other homeland security end users, policy makers, decision makers across all levels of industry and government, and community leaders.

For more information, visit CIRI’s website at ciri.illinois.edu.