The N.I.T.E. Center, Neumann Investigative Technology Excellence Center, offers students experiential learning in fields like cybersecurity and criminal justice while providing a service to police in everything from homicides to missing persons to theft.
“We’re doing something that’s very, very unique, and doing something that, in our opinion, is having tremendous community impact and is helping to develop the next generation of analysists, both on the cyber side as well as the law enforcement side,” University President Dr. Chris Everett Domes told a gathering of local and federal law enforcement and other dignitaries who gathered in the Rocco A. Abessinio Building where the N.I.T.E. Center is housed.
“This group of analysts, under (Aston Township Detective Joe Walsh’s) leadership, now over 37 student analysts over two years, have been able to help be a multiplier in our communities, to help make our communities safer,” Domes said. “The work of law enforcement professionals is being enhanced by the work of the team here at Neumann.”
To date, that team has assisted in 988 cases across 64 departments and agencies since the center’s inception in May 2024, including 424 forensic investigations of digital devices and 528 incidents of real-time crime.
Aston Police Chief Dan Ruggieri said the vision for the partnership among the university, police and township began with a casual conversation with Walsh. He was somewhat apprehensive at first, but it has undoubtedly been a resounding success, he said.
Walsh said the initial idea was to be a cyber crime and digital forensic center to help process electronic evidence, but quickly evolved to include a real-time crime center that began feeding information live to officers and other first responders on the ground as they are working calls and cases.
If officers are pulling a car over near an intersection with a camera, Walsh said analysts can watch that interaction in real time to ensure officer safety even before backup arrives, or they can alert a fire department that the building they are heading toward is not actually on fire.
He highlighted a couple of cases that were quickly solved using this technology.
Early on, students were able to identify a man accused of stealing a bicycle within 24 hours through cameras from a 7Eleven. In another, two armed burglars spotted breaking into a home were tracked and captured within about two hours.
Students also combed through 500 hours of video in another burglary investigation, something Walsh said most departments simply would not have had the resources to handle. That investigation identified individuals who were arrested and ultimately linked to more than 50 burglaries, Walsh said.
On the forensic side, Walsh said the center has worked on hundreds of physical devices like laptops and cellphones to extract information, even badly damaged or burned items, and assists in collecting and analyzing video surveillance.
“Last year, we had 286 incidents and we’re here right now five days a week. So if you do the math, it’s a lot, sometimes five a day,” Walsh said. “What we’re listening for is any type of call that we can provide assistance. Whether it’s a hit-and-run, whether it is a violent crime, whether it is a theft, we are looking to provide live information and, through our partners at the 911 Center, we have a connection to the network of police car computers and we can live-feed information to the police cars. They can see a screen shot of the car they’re looking for, a picture of the person.”
Additional areas of investigation now include cryptocurrency analysis, open source intelligence like license plate readers to develop patterns, and social media deep-dives.
The center attracts a wide variety of students, Walsh said. Information technology students like the analysis part, while criminal justice students like the real-time crime fighting side. The center is also looking for business intern to help run the program.
“A lot of our students, about 90 percent, do not want to work in a police department,” Walsh said. “They don’t want to carry a gun. they don’t want to interact with suspects. But they want to work behind the scenes. So we’re providing them with a career path as well.”
Delaware County District Attorney Tanner Rouse said the world of criminal investigations has changed drastically even in the 15 years he has been a prosecutor, from having to rely on scared witnesses who fear retribution to technology that has no such fears and provides hard evidence every time without bias.
“What you guys are doing is not only utilized by law enforcement, it is the cutting edge of law enforcement,” Rouse said. “What you guys are doing is helping solve crimes in real time, but it is giving you the skills from here to build upon to be the crime solving entities of the future. These are not just things that police officers use, they are the absolute keystone of what we do.”
Many of those speaking Wednesday said they believe what the N.I.T.E. Center is doing will soon be the model nationwide.
THE STUDENTS
The audience also heard from four students: Matt Revelas, Alex Lavin, Gabriella Cappelli and Allen Daniely.
“The experiential learning that I’ve received from working here has been incredible,” said Revelas, one of the first interns to join the center two years ago. “I’ve had the opportunity to use digital forensics tools, to go to trainings and networking opportunities that I would have not otherwise been able to do, and it’s because of that that about two years ago now I decided to pursue my Masters Degree in cybersecurity and continue working in digital forensics.”
Lavin also began working at the center two years ago and said he consistently looked forward to coming to work, where he fell in love with digital forensics and hopes to pursue it as a career.
Cappelli has only been at the center for two weeks, but said it quickly became apparent that she would be learning new skills every day that could translate to the law enforcement field.
“I’ve been raised to help others in need and I feel as though digital forensics and my internship here at the N.I.T.E. Center has awoken that skill within me, and allowed me to take the principle that I was taught growing up and apply that in real time,” said Daniely, who joined the center in December.
Revelas also pointed to four graduates who have taken the skills they learned at the N.I.T.E. Center to law enforcement positions, including the Delaware County District Attorney’s Office and the Upper Darby Police Department.
Walsh said the center plans to expand both physically to a second building on campus and in operational hours in the near future. He said he also hopes to hire on full-time analysts; bring on more interns, up to 25 to 30 per semester; expand services to things like forensic accounting; and establish a cybersecurity operation center to assist businesses in monitoring networks.
Walsh also hopes to put a drone on the building’s rooftop that could be auto-dispatched to locations where cameras are scant, which could further help train students as drone operators.
THE WIDER VIEW
Common Pleas Court Judge Jack Stollsteimer, who was the district attorney when the center opened in 2024, said it was a poignant event given the Catholic tradition of the university and the recent encyclical from Pope Leo XIV on safeguarding personhood from artificial intelligence.
“I think, for me, it’s always been a question of whether technology can be used for good as well as for bad. And what these people are doing here, these young people, is trying to use technology for the good of humanity,” Stollsteimer said.
While much of the surveillance technology discussed Wednesday sounded like it could have come straight from a Philip K. Dick novel, Stollsteimer said that cat is already out of the bag. The luddites may try to destroy the technology, Stollsteimer said, but it is not going anywhere.
He noted technology has not just changed crime fighting, but crime as well. There is little point in robbing a bank physically when a keystroke can reap 10 times the reward with far less risk of getting caught.
“I mean, literally, artificial intelligence weaponized could end humanity, right? And at the same time, artificial intelligence used by the right people who have good moral training can be used to benefit society,” Stollsteimer said. “I think the question of our time is going to be, is it going to be a good or bad outcome … and I’m just thankful to be able to see here people who are trying to use it for the benefit of humanity.”
“The benefits outweigh the harm, but I don’t think we need to squint too hard,” Rouse added. “In a world where Skynet becomes self-aware, we’re dooming ourselves. … I think you’d have to be naïve not to see the danger that’s looming, but also recognize the problem is the lack of harness, not the technology itself. This is going to happen, it’s going to evolve, and we need to figure out how to evolve with it and not put our head in the sand and pretend it’s not a problem.”
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