The Research Institute for Security Engineering (RISE) was recently established to foster and facilitate interdisciplinary research in a variety of topics related to security. Nine engineering faculty members along with other members of academia, and business and government leaders are actively collaborating on research in six focus areas: bioengineering, electromagnetic, infrastructure integrity, computational algorithms and data handling, systems engineering, and ethics and policy. RISE has secured more than $3 million in external funding for research related to homeland security.

The mission of RISE is to create, analyze and implement advanced technology solutions for security problems. Also, RISE will explore the implications of inserting the new technologies on political policy, business, psychology, personal freedoms and institutional governance.