NEWARK, August 19- Atam Dhawan, Ph.D., professor and chairman of the electrical and computer engineering department at New Jersey Institute of Technology, oversees the operation of the new Center for Wireless Networking and Internet Security. The purpose of the center, based at NJIT, is to develop future technologies to protect the Internet from cyber attacks. It will also protect and improve computer network management.

Princeton University researchers are collaborating on the project that is partially funded by a $2.6 million grant from the New Jersey Commission on Science and Technology.

The Center excites Dhawan's imagination. "The Internet was first conceived to be an information highway with access to all," says Dhawan. "Because of that, we now have few standards to protect information. Classified information about health care, banking, e-commerce, on-line shopping, our personal lives and our military safety can all be in jeopardy. There's no better environment than the academic one to work on, and solve these problems and that's what the center will do."

Challenges facing the center include finding ways to allow the military to recognize a cyber attack and trace its source, design computer systems to prevent cyber attacks, especially on wireless multi-media networks and upgrade network management security.

Dhawan obtained his bachelor's and master's degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Roorkee, Roorkee, India. He was a Canadian Commonwealth Fellow at the University of Manitoba where he completed his doctorate in the same field with specialization in medical imaging and image analysis in 1985.

Dhawan has published more than 150 research articles in refereed journals, books, and refereed conference proceedings.

His current research interests are adaptive learning and pattern recognition, wavelets, genetic algorithms, neural networks, medical imaging, multimodality brain mapping, intelligent image analysis, and multigrid image reconstruction.

NJIT is a public, scientific and technological research university enrolling more than 8,800 students. The university offers bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees to students in 80 degree programs throughout its six colleges: Newark College of Engineering, New Jersey School of Architecture, College of Science and Liberal Arts, School of Management, Albert Dorman Honors College and College of Computing Sciences. The division of continuing professional education offers adults eLearning, off campus degrees and short courses. Expertise and research initiatives include architecture and building science, applied mathematics, biomedical engineering, environmental engineering and science, information technology, manufacturing, materials, microelectronics, multimedia, telecommunications, transportation and solar astrophysics. Yahoo! Internet Life magazine cites NJIT as a "perennially most wired" university.

Contact Information:

Sheryl Weinstein Public Relations (973) 596-3436

Robert Florida Public Relations (973) 596-5203