Jeh Johnson, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, has highlighted DHS’ commitment to help keep communities safe during a speech at the first annual conference of the Middle Eastern Law Enforcement Officers Association in Dearborn, Michigan.

MELOA comprises several department employees who aim to promote trust through community engagement, George Selim, director of DHS’ office for community partnerships, wrote in a blog article published Thursday

“It has been proven, time and again, that a law enforcement community, a police force, a law enforcement organization that looks like the community that they serve builds trust,” Johnson told his audience.

Selim noted that many Middle Eastern Americans serve as Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, Customs and Border Protection watch commanders, U.S. Coast Guard cadets, Federal Emergency Management Agency disaster recovery support personnel and Transportation Security Administration screen passengers.

He added MELOA’s membership has increased by 500 percent since January and the DHS office for community partnerships will continue to promote and build dialogue, understanding and partnerships in a push to safeguard the nation and its values.

The Federal Aviation Administration plans to open a new center of excellence that will facilitate research and development of training methods for air traffic controllers, aviation safety inspectors, engineers, pilots and technicians.

FAA said Friday it chose academic teams led by the University of Oklahoma and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University to oversee the Air Transportation Center of Excellence for Technical Training and Human Performance.

The center is scheduled to be fully operational within the next few months and will study human factors that affect aviation training as well as identify mobile learning technologies and methods to collect and manage data.

Principal investigators from both universities will conduct research projects while senior faculty, graduate-level and undergraduate students will be encouraged to participate in research activities, FAA noted.

FAA’s CoE program is supported through a cost-sharing partnership between the government, academia, industry.

The new research hub will add to FAA’s 12 CoEs focused on different topic areas such as unmanned aircraft systems, alternative jet fuels and environment, general aviation safety, commercial space transportation.

NAS and the Associates Research Foundation will lead a group in charge of a new fire shelter design that uses standard aerospace materials, KSAZ-TV in Flagstaff, Arizona reported Saturday.

Linda Williams writes NASA researcher Steve Miller and the U.S. Forest Service have introduced a new fire shelter design to Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona) and a group of wildland firefighters in July that USFS aims to test in the summer.

The Convective Heat Improvement for Emergency Fire Shelters team’s fire shelter design will use fiberglass insulation, high temperature plastic film and a gas barrier designed to help firefighters have time to deploy a tent and address convective heat concerns.

“When we learned about the tragedy at Granite Mountain then we began to wonder if some the material we were working on could improve fire shelters and NASA independently had the same idea and when we realized we shared that common interest we began to work together,” said Miller, a member of NASA’s fire shelter design team.

The fire shelter design project will continue in the research and development phase and will be ready for final testing next year.

The Department of Health and Human Services has declared a public health emergency in Puerto Rico in an effort to address the risk posed by Zika virus to pregnant women in the U.S. territory.

“This emergency declaration allows us to provide additional support to the Puerto Rican government and reminds us of the importance of pregnant women, women of childbearing age, and their partners taking additional steps to protect themselves and their families from Zika,” HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell said in a statement released Friday.

Burwell made the declaration in response to the request of Alejandro Garcia, governor of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.

The public health emergency seeks to help the Puerto Rican government apply for financial support through the U.S. Labor Department’s National Dislocated Worker Grant program in order to recruit and train unemployed workers for outreach and vector control programs.

Puerto Rico can also ask for the reassignment on an interim basis of local public health personnel who are funded under Public Health Service Act initiatives in order to provide assistance to Zika virus response efforts on the island.