Welcome message from the conference chair

On behalf of the Boston Section of the IEEE, welcome to the thirteenth Conference on Homeland Security Technologies. The conference Steering Committee has assembled a very relevant program that will provide perspective on the current state of the art and recent advances to address homeland security concerns. As the homeland security landscape evolves, the topics in this conference continue to address a wide range of important issues. With this year´s conference, we continue to receive robust participation from researchers working to protect our homeland against land or maritime threats, to strengthen our biometrics and forensics capabilities, to improve our resilience to attacks and natural disasters, and to mitigate cyber security threats. In particular, participation from the cyber security field flourished in parallel with national and global trends.