In a joint announcement made today by the USC Viterbi School of Engineering and the USC School of Policy, Planning, and Development, Stephen C. Hora was named as the new director of USC's Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Terrorism Events (CREATE), the nation's first Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Research Center of Excellence.

Established in 2004 and renewed by the DHS in 2007, CREATE is the nation's first university-based Center of Excellence, supporting research in response to the threat of terrorism. A model of interdisciplinary collaboration -- hence the engineering-planning and policy partnership -- CREATE continues to break new ground in applying advanced risk, decision and economic analysis and modeling tools to evaluate the costs and consequences of terrorism.

Hora is a prominent decision analyst who has led several CREATE studies and is an experienced academic leader who served as the University of Hawaii-Hilo's interim vice chancellor for Academic Affairs from 2005 to 2007. He is a professor of Management Science and Statistics at UH-Hilo. Hora earned both his D.B.A. and his bachelor's degree from USC. Hora will hold a research professor appointment at USC.

DHS selected USC as the site for CREATE from among 71 competing proposals. CREATE develops predictive models that gauge how and where terrorist events might occur, estimate the economic consequences of such attacks, and identify where the country's vulnerabilities reside. A CREATE study helped the State of California strategically allocate infrastructure protection funds received from the Department of Homeland Security. Another study serves to guide the DHS analysts as they weigh the costs and benefits of devices that could protect commercial jets from shoulder-fired missiles.

In addition, a CREATE-funded research team led by Professor Milind Tambe of the USC Department of Computer Science developed randomization software for vehicle checkpoints at airports, with significant success.

To date, CREATE has generated 256 publications, and reports on biological threats, border security and seaport vulnerabilities; it also maintains an active conference schedule.

CREATE's research team includes more than 45 faculty researchers and more than 40 research assistants from USC and other universities across the nation.

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Contact: Sasha Marcus at smarcus@usc.edu or (213) 740-3863