Defense Threat Reduction Agency

Message from the Director, Basic and Applied Sciences Department

In 2007 the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) established a new basic research program to solve the most challenging problems for reducing the threats from weapons of mass destruction (WMD). The program has two interlinked principal goals:

1. Stimulate the development of innovative solutions to enable revolutionary change for achieving effective, efficient and affordable threat reduction
2. Promote the development of the next generation science and technology (S&T) workforce for combating WMD

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Thrust Area 1: Science of WMD Sensing and Recognition

Research involves exploration of interactions between materials and electromagnetic frequencies, molecules, nuclear radiation or particles for developing techniques that generate information about the presence, identity, and/or quantity of material or energy that may indicate WMD in the environment. Read more.

Thrust Area 2: Network Sciences

Research involves analytical or computational means to (a) derive actionable information from social networks that identify adversarial intent to acquire, distribute or use WMDs; or (b) model physical networks before, during or after attack to assist with identifying vulnerabilities, prioritizing preventive measures, and planning for consequence management and rapid reconfiguration. Read more.

Thrust Area 3: Science for Protection

Research involves fundamental investigations to advance the knowledge of physical, biological, chemical, and engineering sciences to protect personnel, sensitive electronic systems, and structural infrastructure from the effects of weapons of mass destruction. Protection includes both passive and active defense against threats. Read more.

Thrust Area 4: Science to Defeat WMD

Research involves the creation of new energetic materials or physical approaches that enhance the defeat of WMDs by orders of magnitude, the improvement of modeling and simulation of these materials and various phenomena that affect success and estimate the impact (lethality) of defeat actions, and assessing event characteristics using various dynamic analytical methods. Basic science to defeat WMD involves furthering the understanding of explosives, their detonation, and problems associated with accessing target WMDs. Read more.

Thrust Area 5: Science to Secure WMD

Research involves monitoring and securing WMD using innovative techniques to neutralize chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or explosive (CBRNE) materials and components, discovery of revolutionary means to secure components and weapon-usable materials, and studies of scientific principles that lead to novel physical tags or other methods to monitor compliance and disrupt proliferation pathways. Read more.