S&T Program Manager Anthony Caracciolo has helped to usher in new, innovative technology to support our nation’s first responders and help them to save more lives. In this episode, Anthony and host Deepak Saini discuss digitizing building floorplans, enabling detection of life through walls, contactless vehicle stoppage, and more. You will also learn about his childhood in New York City and how having an older brother who was a cop led to a passion for making all responders safer in the field.
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26:53
Better, Faster, More Effective
Emergency Prevention and Response Director Luke Watko joins host Dee Saini to talk about how S&T gathers and prioritizes first responders’ technology needs and drives innovation to help them safely answer every call. You’ll hear about tech that helps firefighters find their way out of complete darkness, another that allows colleagues to pinpoint their location to within a centimeter if they are in trouble, and how artificial intelligence and virtual reality can support agency operations. Watko also shares how his journey from an Arizona mining town to the Air Force landed him at S&T and how responders on the front lines during the pandemic influenced the trajectory of his career.
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26:28
We Take the Load Off of Them
In this episode host Brittany Greco joins National Urban Security Technology Laboratory Engineer Cassy Robinson for a conversation about her work with the Big City Fire Working Group, bringing together the national fire community to identify technology gaps S&T can fill. She explains how she went from growing peaches on the farm in rural South Carolina to operating search and rescue robots at Ground Zero on 911 and how this fascinating journey led her to the Department of Homeland Security.
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28:06
Different Pieces and Systems
In the first Season 5 episode of Technologically Speaking, host Dee Saini chats with Russell Becker, director of S&T’s Office for Interoperability and Compatibility, about the technologies in place that power our communities’ emergency response channels. Learn about challenges agencies face when responding to emergencies that cross jurisdictional lines, or that require multiple agencies to respond, and what S&T is doing to help responders stay connected and keep lines of emergency communication open.
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22:49
Capture Various Forms of Fentanyl
Biochemical and forensic experts from the Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) visited one of the nation’s busiest (and loudest) ports of entry in Mariposa, Arizona. With this as our backdrop, listen as the group discusses research and development of a novel fentanyl detector designed to improve screening for illicit drugs. S&T’s Dan Conway leads a conversation with Dr. Andrea Wiggins of S&T’s Chemical Biological Detection and Defense Program; Travis Brown, S&T Program Manager for Forensics and Criminal Investigation; Dr. Laura Parker, S&T Senior Advisor on Sensors and Detection; and PNNL Senior Research Chemist Dr. Robert Ewing about how this new technology was demonstrated and could soon be used and overall challenges with combating the flow of fentanyl.
Technologically Speaking is a podcast series that delivers insightful, thought-provoking, and unscripted conversations about timely national security challenges and the scientific solutions S&T is developing to tackle them.
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