Personal touch: Homeland Security 'human factors' puts imprint on emerging technologies.

• Author: Magnuson, Stew
• Position: SECURITY BEAT: Homeland Defense Briefs

Jay Cohen, Department of Homeland Security undersecretary, rarely passes up an opportunity to mention that he created the human factors division at his revamped science and technology directorate.

Cohen has repeatedly said that he is as interested in the bomber as he is in the bomb.

"We're right now the smallest division, but I'd like to think we're the sugar in everybody's Wheaties," said the division's first director, Sharla Rausch.

In other words, everything the science and technology directorate does has a human element, Rausch told a National Defense Industrial Association science and technology conference.

That goes for the other five divisions: explosives, chemical-biological, command, control and interoperability, borders and maritime security and infrastructure and geophysics.

Before Cohen's arrival last year, human factors in DHS technology programs were "sporadically spread out." The new division is attempting to be more systematic, she said. Its motto is: "know our enemies; understand ourselves; put the human in the equation."

The division has five goals for which it would like assistance from contractors.

The first is identifying the enemy. "What we're looking for is real-time, accurate ... ergonomically effective biometrics," said Rausch.

Next is enhancing the safety...