Management Team
Michael Silevitch
Dr. Silevitch is the co-Director of ALERT, a Department of Homeland Security Center of Excellence. Michael also serves as the Director of the Bernard M. Gordon Center for Subsurface Sensing and Imaging Systems, a National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center. Previously he directed of the Center for Electromagnetics Research (an NSF Industry-University Center) and the Center for the Enhancement of Science and Mathematics Education (CESAME). Michael received the BSEE, MSEE and PhD from Northeastern University in 1965, 1966, and, 1971, respectively. He joined the faculty of Northeastern in 1972, and was appointed to the Robert D. Black Endowed Chair in Engineering at Northeastern in 2003. He is an elected fellow of the IEEE.
Carey Rappaport
Dr. Rappaport is the Deputy Director of ALERT. Carey also serves as an Associate Director of the Bernard M. Gordon Center for Subsurface Sensing and Imaging Systems. Professor Rappaport was the Principal Investigator of a $5M ARO-sponsored Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative in humanitarian demining, the lead researcher supporting Alion Science and Technology, Incs. $130M Omnibus Task Order with US Army Night Vision and the Electronic Sensors Directorate, as well as the Principal Investigator for a $4.9M Dept. of Homeland Security Advanced Spectrographic Radiation Portal Monitor for special radioactive materials.
Carey has been a professor at Northeastern University since 1987. He received dual SBs, SM, and Eng from MIT in 1982 and the Ph.D. from MIT in 1987.
David Castanon
Dr. Castanon is an Associate Director of ALERT. David also serves as an Associate Director of the Bernard M. Gordon Center for Subsurface Sensing and Imaging Systems. He received his Ph.D. in Applied Mathematcis at Massachusetts Institute of Technology,(1976) and his B.S. in Electrical Engineering at Tulane University (1971). He is an Associate Editor of Computational Optimization and Applications. He is also a member of the IEEE Control Systems Society, Board of Governors, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics Previously, Dr Castanon was Senior Scientist at Alphatech, Inc and was also a Research Scientist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems.
Miguel Velez-Reyes
Dr. Velez-Reyes is an Associate Director of ALERT. Miguel also serves as an Associate Director and the UPRM Campus Coordinator for the Bernard M. Gordon Center for Subsurface Sensing and Imaging Systems (CenSSIS), and a Professor at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering of the University of Puerto Rico Mayaguez Campus. He did his Ph.D., Electrical Engineer, and Science Master degrees in Electrical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and BSEE at the University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez (UPRM). Dr. Velez-Reyes research and teaching interests are in the areas of modeling, identification, and control of dynamic systems, remote sensing and hyperspectral image processing. He has been awarded the NSF Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) by U.S. President Bill Clinton in 1997 for the project Parameter Estimation for Ill-Conditioned Systems with Applications to Electric Drives and Power Systems . Dr. Velez-Reyes is director of the UPRM Tropical Center for Earth and Space Studies a NASA University Research Center. He is also UPRM Campus Coordinator for the Center for Power Electronic Systems (CPES) National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering Research Centers (ERC).
Xi-Cheng Zhang
Dr. Zhang is an Associate Director of ALERT.Xi-Cheng also serves as an Eric Josson Professor of Science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. X.-C. Zhang graduated from Peking University in 1982. He received his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in physics from Brown University, Providence, RI in 1983 and 1986. He was a visiting scientist at MIT in 1985. From 1985 to 1987, He worked in the Physical Technology Division of Amoco Research Center. From 1987 to 1991, he was in the Electrical Engineering Department at Columbia University. Dr. Zhang joined Rensselaer in 1992. Now Dr. Zhang is the Professor at Department of Physics, Applied Physics and Astronomy and Professor of Department of Electrical, Computer and System, and the Founding Director of the Center for THz Research at Rensselaer. He leads of NATO SET Terahertz Task Group. Dr. Zhang receives 24 US patents, published 18 books and book chapters, authored and co-authored over 350 scientific papers, delivered over 400 colloquium, seminars, invited conference presentations, and 300 contributed conference talks (since 1990). He is a Fellow of IEEE, the Optical Society of America, and the American Physics Society.
Brandon Weeks
Dr. Weeks is an Associate Director of ALERT. Brandon Weeks received his BS degree in chemistry from the University of California-Riverside in 1993. In 2000 Dr. Weeks obtained his PhD at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom which involved the design of new scanning probe instrumentation applied to chemical processes. After completing his PhD, Dr. Weeks joined Livermore National Laboratory performing research in high explosives, sensors and nano-lithography under the supervision of Jim DeYoreo as a postdoctoral fellow. In 2002 he was converted to a staff member at Livermore and was responsible for projects in the Enhanced Surveillance Campaign. Dr. Weeks moved to Texas Tech University and is currently an Associate Professor in Chemical Engineering. He teaches classes in applied ordinary/partial differential equations, scanning probe microscopy, technical writing and reactor design. Dr. Weeks has over 45 publications in peer reviewed journals and is the Associate Editor of the journal Scanning. He has won a number of awards while at Texas Tech including the NSF CAREER award and the Whitacre Engineering Research award.
Choong-Shik Yoo
Choong-Shik Yoo is an Associate Director of ALERT. Dr. Yoo also serves as a Professor in the Department of Chemistry and is the Associate Director for the internationally recognized WSU Institute for Shock Physics. Prior to his arrival at WSU, he worked for nearly 20 years at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory where he developed and led a large multi-disciplinary research group in High Pressure Physics. Professor Yoo received his Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry in 1986 from UCLA. His research expertise is on novel materials research under extreme environments of pressure, temperature, and chemical composition. His work has utilized static and dynamic high-pressure capabilities coupled with the state-of-the-art laser spectroscopic methods and x-ray diffraction and spectroscopy at the national synchrotron facilities. Dr. Yoo's current research studies focus on energetic materials and processes, as well as developments of novel high energy density materials, reactive materials, wear-resistive superhard materials, and novel functional nanocomposites and intermetallics. Professor Yoo twice earned the DOE awards (1995 and 2006), for Excellence in Weapons Materials Research. He currently serves as the US Regional Editor for High Pressure Researchand is a member of American Chemical Society, American Physical Society, American Geophysics Union, Materials Research Society, and Three Materials Society. Professor Yoo currently holds a DOE Q clearance.
Stephen McKnight
Dr. McKnight is the Education co-Leader of ALERT. Steve also serves as the Education Leader of The Bernard M. Gordon Center for Subsurface Sensing and Imaging Systems. Stephen has been a professor at Northeastern since 1980 and currently teaches the Scientific Foundations of Engineering course for the Gordon Engineering Leadership Program. He received the BA from Oberlin in 1969 and the Ph.D. from University of Maryland in 1977. Previously he was Associate Director of the Center for Electromagnetics Research (an NSF Industry-University Center).
John Beaty
John is the Industrial Liaison and Director of Technology Development for ALERT. John also serves as the Director of Technology Programs for the Bernard M. Gordon Center for Subsurface Sensing and Imaging Systems and co-teaches the Engineering Leadership course for the Gordon Engineering Leadership Program. Mr. Beaty has extensive experience managing research and development for the scientific instrument, semiconductor, and government contract industries. John spent 30 years with three companies, Thermo Electron Corporation, Schlumberger Test and Transactions, and FEI Company developing a wide variety of instruments and tools, using diverse technologies. In most instances, John procured development resources from a variety of sources: government, industry, industry consortia, and venture capital.
Horst Wittmann
Dr. Wittmann is the Research Evaluation Advisory Panel Leader for ALERT. Horst also serves as the Senior Research Development Officer in the Office of the Provost of Northeastern University and is actively involved in the Gordon Engineering Leadership Program. In 2001 he retired from the federal Senior Executive Service as Associate Director of the Sensors Directorate, Air Force Research Laboratory, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, OH, and from his position as Lead US Representative at the NATO Research and Technology Board, Sensors and Electronics Technology Panel. Dr. Wittmann's field of scientific specialization is solid-state physics; he received the B.S in 1959 and the Ph.D. in 1964. He is a fellow of the IEEE and AAAS.