Simons Center News

On August 21, the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College (CGSC) awarded 33 Golden Pen Awards to faculty members in recognition of their published scholarly works. CGSC’s Golden Pen program recognizes faculty members for their professional writing, and are broken into three categories: golden, silver, and bronze. Included among the awardees were two authors whose work was published in […]

This August marks the tenth anniversary of the catastrophic 2005 Atlantic hurricane season that devastated the gulf coast region. On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina made landfall, followed shortly by Hurricanes Rita and Wilma in September and October. Ten years into the recovery and rebuilding efforts, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has outlined the […]

On August 10, the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) released their draft Report on Strategic U.S. Government Engagement in International Standardization to Achieve U.S. Objectives for Cybersecurity. In 2014, NIST was tasked with collaborating with U.S. federal government agencies to ensure interagency coordination in “the development of international technical standards related to information […]

Earlier this week, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson announced leadership changes at the Department’s National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center (NCCIC). The NCCIC is the U.S. government’s 24/7 hub for cybersecurity information sharing, incident response, and coordination, and has been without permanent leadership for nearly a year. Dr. Andy Ozment, Assistant Secretary of […]

Recently, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Blue Campaign observed their fifth year fighting human trafficking in the U.S. The DHS Blue Campaign brings together DHS, law enforcement, government, non-governmental, and private organizations to assist trafficking victims and bring traffickers to justice. In a statement commemorating the Blue Campaign milestone, Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security […]

The Simons Center recently bid farewell to another extremely accomplished Graduate Fellow. From May to July, James Gilmore conducted research and wrote an original paper as the first graduate student enrolled at Missouri State University in Springfield, Mo., to intern at the Simons Center. Gilmore’s primary research effort was focused on the Army’s development and […]

In July the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report assessing interagency collaboration between the State Department’s Bureau of Counterterrorism and other government entities. GAO’s report evaluates progress made by the Bureau to counter violent extremism, build partner counterterrorism capacity, and improve coordination since it was elevated to bureau status in 2012. During their review, GAO […]

This month the State Department released the 2015 Trafficking in Persons Report. This is the 15th year the report has been published, and it is also the 15th anniversary of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act. On July 27, Under Secretary of State for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights Sarah Sewell spoke at the roll […]

Welcome to the updated and refreshed Simons Center website. We hope old friends are finding their way around and new site visitors are discovering all that the Simons Center has to offer. Users of our old site will notice that we’ve added a few new content areas to the site, including this blog. The new […]

Earlier this month, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, the Honorable Christine E. Wormuth spoke at the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) on the need for whole-of-government collaboration to counter the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). In her remarks, Wormuth stressed that combating ISIL is not strictly a military issue. Instead, […]