Research at IU
Research at IU contributes to producing dual-use and military technology used in the U.S.’s endless imperial wars. Much of this technology and research is done in partnership with NSA Crane, the world’s third largest naval installation. However, Luddy partnerships with Crane and the U.S. Department of Defense extend far beyond this, a key part of a wider push towards strengthening military presence and production in the state of Indiana, having been referred to as part of the “defense problem solving ecosystem in Indiana.” This defense ecosystem has been a part of the reason for the military’s continued infrastructure building and investment in the state of Indiana. Students at IU deserve a learning environment that is dedicated to their learning, and not one that is simply becoming an extension of NSA Crane.” Now more than ever, as these technologies are used to attack Iran, Lebanon, and Palestine, it is important to know how your research is being used and to keep the blood off your hands!
Below are listed some professors whose research has been funded by or done in collaboration with Crane and the U.S. DoD. If you are curious about a professor or know of any professors who have partnered with Crane, reach out to info@iudivestnow.org.
Research at Luddy
Smart Fibers
Alexander Gumennik heads the Fiber and Additive Manufacturing Enabled Systems (FAMES) lab. In 2022, he received $5.5 million to upgrade the nanofabrication equipment and facilities at IU. This was expanded into IU CREATE through an IU partnership with NSWC Crane in 2024. Through official collaborations with Crane and other government and university partners, the lab develops surveillance technology and battlefield medtech. He is currently applying for a grant from the U.S.-Israel Binational Science Foundation on similar projects.
A major research area of the FAMES lab is in smart fibers. These smart fibers can take in and respond to auditory, visual, tactile (touch), and other environmental stimuli, and can be made into textiles, weaved into clothing, and made into large circuits. Another application that Gumennik has been exploring is building “floating fishnets” of surveillance fibers, which are powered by waves. These technologies increase surveillance capability while being less detectable than traditional surveillance techniques such as cameras or drones.
Gumennik has been explicitly exploring the military applications of this work, as evidenced through the lab’s partnership with NSWC Crane and lectures such as “Molten-Phase Fabrication of Smart Fibers for Military Applications,” which he delivered in 2022. The expansion of surveillance has been an essential tool of the U.S. and Israeli militaries. Examples include the Where’s Daddy program developed by to target Palestinians in their homes.
Drones
Dr. Mehmet Dalkilic, or Memo, is a professor of computer science at IU’s Luddy School of Informatics. While there is not much about his career online - he has not uploaded an updated CV since 2013 and has seemingly quit LinkedIn- Dalkilic has been quite busy. With a background in biochemistry and computer science, he has centered his work on a variety of theoretical and practical computing projects as well as AI education and addiction science. As an IU professor, he been a PI or co-PI on multiple grants for the U.S. Department of Defense. He is also a visiting research faculty at NSWC Crane in the Electro-Optics division and works with the U.S. National Security Innovation Network on rational drones.
As an IU professor, he has partnered with researchers in the School of Education as co-PIs for the AI goes Rural project. This project, a collaboration between IU and NSWC Crane, received $1.7 million in funding from the U.S. Department of Defense from 2021 to 2024 to create a “Middle School Computer Science curriculum based on DoD modernization priority area of Artificial Intelligence education.” The program also included two summer camps, one of which invited Crane engineers as guest speakers to discuss their work and applications to the Navy, such as prototyping for Navy SEALS. While increased AI literacy is important, the development of AI and science education as a whole in the U.S. has been deeply entrenched in militarism and establishing dominance on a global stage. Far from being just another initiative, AI goes Rural seeks to be the template for larger scale AI education programs in the DoD and for this, it has received letters of support from Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC), US Special Operations Command (USSOCOM), and US Central Command (USCENTCOM).
Furthermore, in a partnership with the Richerme lab in the IU physics department, he has taken advantage of the IU Academic Accelerator for National Security program to continue their work on quantum information systems in a $500,000 grant. In this project they seek to test whether ion trap quantum information systems hold up under large amounts of radiation at large-scale radiation facilities around the U.S.
Despite the lack of information online about Dalkilic, the few pieces of information that we do have show that he has made a pattern of collaboration with the U.S. Department of Defense through various collaborations and grants.
As a visiting researcher at NSWC Crane, Dalkilic worked with Mark Jenne and Ben Conly to co-author a presentation entitled “Machine Risk Assessment” for the Second Annual Workshop on Naval Applications of Machine Learning in 2018. In the abstract Earlier in August of 2018, Mark Jenne had received funding for a program entitled “Machine Aided Threat Assessment” under the Naval Innovation Science and Engineering program. The Naval Innovation Science and Engineering program was described as an “internal research and development program for the Department of Navy” by program manager Ryan Fox in a 2023 article.
In his role as a visiting research faculty, he has also continued to support educational initiatives tied to NSWC Crane. In 2020, NSWC Crane initiated an internship for students in the X-Force Program, in which graduate and undergraduate students worked with DoD scientists. As a part of this program, students were split up into groups to tackle problems in different areas of defense. Dalkilic served as the sponsor for the Airship Wargames problem set. According to Dalkilic, the 2020 internship group produced “a simulator for rational drones” with further work to be done in an Academic Accelerator Grant, and he intended to continue as a sponsor for the internship program.
Research at Kelley
Scott Shackelford
Scott Shackelford is a Provost Professor of business law and ethics at the Kelley School of Business at IU and serves as the Associate Vice President and Vice Chancellor for Research at IU-Bloomington. He has brought in (at the most conservative estimate possible) OVER $1 MILLION in research funding within the last 5 years from institutions that profit from and provide the means for genocide in Palestine. These include the U.S. Department of Defense, Google, and Lockheed Martin.
In 2023, he was awarded $506,000 by the U.S. Department of Defense under the U.S. Army’s Jack Voltaic initiative for a project entitled Analyzing Pedagogical Effectiveness for Critical Infrastructure Security, Resilience, and Integrated Smart City Training. In 2023, he was awarded $506,000 by the U.S. Department of Defense under the U.S. Army’s Jack Voltaic initiative. This project, which is still listed as an active project on the U.S. Army Cyber Institute website, is aimed at furthering Army collaborations with external research institutions, policy groups, and regional partners on cybersecurity issues.
In 2022, He also received $15,000 in funding from the Lockheed Martin Common Mission Project to fund the Hacking for Defense® (H4D) Program at IU. During this program, graduate and undergraduate students team up to develop solutions for DoD and military challenges.