Conference and Grantee's Meeting: Disrupting Operations of Illicit Supply Networks; Arlington, Virginia; 27-28 March 2023

Networks that illegally traffic in everything from people and drugs to human organs and nuclear material pose significant threats to US health, prosperity and security. This award supports a conference and grantees' meeting that convenes researchers and educators supported by NSF's Disrupting Operations of Illicit Supply Networks (D-ISN) initiative, other interested researchers and educators, and representatives from a variety of government sectors to share research outcomes and explore opportunities for collaboration in studying a variety of illicit supply networks. NSF's D-ISN initiative supports teams of investigators from diverse fields, including operations research, the social sciences, and computer science focused on advancing the scientific understanding of how such illicit supply networks function and how to disrupt them. This conference brings together these and other interested researchers, along with NSF program directors and representatives from many different governmental agencies and federally-sponsored Centers of Excellence, to nurture this emerging research community. The conference will bring together domain experts and quantitative researchers to explore new analytical approaches and engineering methods to disrupt and disable illicit supply networks. The conference includes keynotes and grantee poster sessions, as well as facilitated breakout sessions on specific illicit supply network domains (human/organ/arms trafficking; narcotics/drugs/counterfeit products trafficking, financial fraud, among others). There will be ample networking opportunities for supported and other interested researchers to discuss topics related to this research theme. These discussions will include representatives from many US and foreign agencies whose missions involve various aspects of detection and interdiction of illicit supply networks to begin to move academic research into translation. The conference also provides opportunities for student involvement. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.