II-NEW: Infrastructure for Change: From a Teaching Department to National Prominence

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Over the last several years, Georgetown University has espoused apolicy of growth for its science departments. This project supportsGeorgetown University's growth goals by positing a multifacetedresearch program that explores new techniques for processing largecollections of text data.The project examines how both new and existing text processing methodsmay be applied to a variety of open problems across differentdisciplines within computer science. Research activities include textmining for large-scale document collections; machine learningtechniques for detecting malicious executables; information retrievalmethods for performing proactive digital forensic investigations; textprocessing approaches for preventing privacy breaches in encryptedvoice-over-IP (VoIP) communication; and data mining and sentimentdetection methods for automated content analysis of large quantitiesof political science texts.To support these goals, the project includes the creation of anext-generation infrastructure for large-scale text processing.Data-intensive tasks will use interconnected front-end systems,connected via high-speed networking to scalable back-end storagesolutions. The infrastructure supports the development and testing ofnovel text processing algorithms on very large corpora.The project's themes of text processing and information assurance havebeen integrated into the undergraduate and graduate curricula atGeorgetown University. More broadly, the project benefits society byimproving the ability to (1) process large quantities of information,(2) identify malicious applications, and (3) improve the resiliency ofdigital communication networks to eavesdropping attacks. The projectbroadens the participation in research through the University's SummerPrograms for High School Students and the Center for MulticulturalEquity and Access.