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Security Experts to Attend UTEP Intelligence Meeting

Last Updated on June 12, 2018 at 12:00 AM

Originally published June 12, 2018

By UC Staff

UTEP Communications

“Intelligence in the Non-English Speaking World” is the theme of this year’s National Security Colloquium at The University of Texas at El Paso. The annual free conference will be from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday, June 19 and 20,2018, in the Blumberg Auditorium on the first floor of the University Library.

UTEP's National Security Studies Institute
UTEP's National Security Studies Institute

The conference, which was established in 2008, attracts students and scholars from UTEP and the region’s intelligence, military and law enforcement stakeholders. It is organized by UTEP’s National Security Studies Institute (NSSI).

This year’s guest speakers will discuss the intelligence and security services of allies and adversaries such as France, Spain, China, Iran, Russia, Israel, Mexico, the Netherlands and North Korea.

Larry Valero, Ph.D., NSSI director and associate professor of security studies, said the conference is a great opportunity for anyone who wants to learn about U.S. security and how it relates to international friends and foes.

He said it was important to understand how allied nations work together on intelligence and security matters. It is equally important to understand the formidable challenges the United States and its allies face from adversarial foreign intelligence services.

“The U.S. can’t operate alone,” Valero said. “It needs to work with others. It’s critical to understand how others work. That’s a really important aspect of this colloquium.”

Some UTEP students who are part of the National Security Studies Institute (NSSI) will present “electronic posters” about the open-source intelligence research they did about China, Iran, India, Mexico, Morocco and Emni, a branch of the Islamic State established in 2014 to export terrorism.

Participants such as David Jimenez say the conference is an outstanding learning and networking opportunity. Jimenez is a strategic intelligence analyst with the West Texas HIDTA (High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area).

He recently retired from Homeland Security Investigations – Intelligence, and before that was a U.S. Border Patrol analyst.

He has been an adjunct online NSSI faculty member since 2012.

“Having served the past eight years in Washington, D.C., and working with the federal law enforcement and intelligence communities, I have a personal and professional interest in seeing the (NSSI) program grow and succeed,” Jimenez said.

The colloquium was organized by the NSSI, an intelligence community center for academic excellence, and the UTEP chapter of Students in Intelligence and National Security.