Industry partnerships in higher education are pushing STEM graduates into the business of weapons manufacturing and genocide profiteering.
Students at the University of Central Florida take part in a campus protest against the ongoing Israeli attacks on Gaza.
(Paul Hennessy / Getty)
If you’re a computer science student at the University of Central Florida, you may have the opportunity to build your resume by developing tracking technology for Israeli drones used to commit genocide in Palestine.
The nationwide student movement against US support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza has brought renewed attention to the military ties at colleges and universities at a level not seen since the anti–Vietnam War movement. In 2024, the Pentagon provided over $10 billion in research grants to US universities. This doesn’t account for additional university funding that came directly from weapons contractors, nor does it account for funding directly from the Israeli military-industrial complex.
The University of Central Florida (UCF) is one recipient of such funding. The university’s Center for Research in Computer Vision maintains an “industry partnership” with Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest manufacturer of drone weapons, also known as Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). Elbit’s products include the missile-carrying Hermes 450 UAV and the “suicide drone” SkyStriker UAV. Elbit’s weapons have been used to target civilian homes and infrastructure in Gaza.
According to its website, the purpose of the Center for Research in Computer Vision is to “promote basic research in computer vision and its applications in all related areas including National Defense & Intelligence, Homeland Security, Environmental Monitoring, Life Sciences and Biotechnology and Robotics.” An internal slideshow from UCF’s Computer Vision program also mentions a $635,000 partnership with American military contractor DRS, a $550,000 partnership with weapons giant Lockheed Martin, and a $350,000 partnership with British aerospace company QinetiQ. All three of these corporations actively supply equipment that has been used to kill civilians in Gaza
In 2020, Dr. Mubarak Shah and Dr. Abhijit Mahalanobis, two of the Computer Vision program’s leading researchers, received a $200,000 grant directly from Elbit Systems’s American subsidiary to develop “human activity recognition” technology. Mahalanobis received an additional grant of $60,000 from Elbit for “Algorithms for object detection and human activity recognition.”
Under Shah’s leadership, the Computer Vision program has become an international hub for research on UAV weapons, AI “target acquisition” programs, and other surveillance technology. Students’ research projects include training airborne devices to “track” people, training UAVs to operate in urban environments, and developing “web-scale” facial recognition technology that can recognize faces from large datasets, such as social media platforms.
Current Issue
Shah’s research portfolio also includes $3 million in funding, split with two other Computer Vision faculty members, to develop Walk-Through Rendering from Images of Varying Altitude (WRIVA) technology for the US military. This project is part of the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA), the experimental weapons and technology program of intelligence agencies like the CIA, FBI, and Office of Naval Intelligence. WRIVA technology allows intelligence operators to model ground-level terrain using only aerial images. Mahalanobis, another leading researcher at the Computer Vision program, is credited as a founding father of tracking technology for drones. In 2009, he developed an “automatic target recognition” patent for Lockheed Martin, which was later cited by Raytheon in one of their own target acquisition patents.
“UCF has ties to a lot of different weapon manufacturers, especially Lockheed Martin,” said Marcus Polzer, the president of Students for a Democratic Society at UCF, which has organized for their university to divest from military contractors going back to 2023. “These companies kind of have a stranglehold on UCF to be honest.”
As Polzer suggests, the university’s connections to Elbit don’t end with research. The two institutions share personnel as well. Jeff Crystal, the Technical Director of Elbit Systems’ American subsidiary, is an advisor to UCF’s College of Optics and Photonics. To divestment organizers like Polzer, this represents a clear conflict of interest: “They have a personal and a legal obligation to drive up profits for companies that are selling arms to Israel, who is committing genocide.”
Two graduates of UCF’s Computer Engineering program have gone on to become AI engineers with Elbit Systems of America, according to their LinkedIn profiles. On another former Computer Vision graduate student’s LinkedIn profile, he describes developing “surveillance systems” for Elbit Systems as a research assistant under Mahalanobis.” A fourth alumnus, who contributed to “UAV Video Analysis” research at UCF, now holds a machine learning position at surveillance giant Palantir.
As a student, Polzer wonders why his university is pushing STEM graduates into the business of genocide profiteering instead of industries like renewable energy, which can be equally if not more lucrative for engineers. “Our stance as UCF SDS is that we love STEM students. We love STEM. We love the idea of it. We love students going into it and pursuing it as a career. We just don’t think they should be funneled into weapons manufacturing. We think they should be funneled into building our infrastructure instead of bombing others. I know Florida has one of the largest solar panel producers … Why can’t we have a partnership with something that’s productive like that?”
The University of Central Florida is just one of countless American universities that are developing UAV weapons technologies under direct sponsorship from Elbit Systems or the Israeli Ministry of Defense. The University of Michigan’s Multidisciplinary Design Optimization Laboratory has produced research on UAV “payload delivery” technology with direct funding from the Israeli military. In the context of military drones, a “payload” can be anything from a camera to a 10kg warhead missile.
Last spring, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology severed research ties with Elbit Systems after a sustained pressure campaign by BDS Boston, the local chapter of the national Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement. Riding that success, BDS Boston is now participating in the “Eject Elbit” against Capital One, pressuring the financial giant to cancel their $90 million loan to Elbit.
While there are laws intended to expose foreign funding of American universities, they function more as speed bumps than road blocks. Section 117 of the Higher Education Act requires universities to disclose gifts from foreign sources, including foreign governments and corporations, of over $250,000. However, as the US-incorporated subsidiary of a foreign company, Elbit Systems of America could be exempt from this disclosure rule.
The development of Israel’s UAV weapons in American universities with support from American students is nothing new. But with organizations like Students for a Democratic Society, Students for Justice in Palestine, and BDS Boston organizing for divestment, the connections between American academia and Israel’s genocide are showing their first signs of fraying.
Popular
“swipe left below to view more authors”Swipe →
“As students, we can make relatively niche topics the center of mainstream news,” Polzer said. “I hate to say it, but think back 15–20 years ago. Palestine was not the central thing being talked about. Israel’s ethnic cleansing was not the central thing being talked about. It’s important to organize because we can do great things.”
More from The Nation
After putting on their very best performances of solidarity every Black History Month, this year corporate marketers have seemed at a loss for words.
We are seeing yet another example of state-sanctioned violence against the reproductive futures of those deemed outside the national body.
The Brazilian star Vinicius Jr. has repeatedly been a victim of racist abuse from soccer fans. Now, it seems such vitriol can even come from players without much consequence.
The real Olympic heroes were the athletes who stood up for each other—and against Trump.
The Gender Liberation Movement’s Raquel Willis says trans youth “are our future” and that new HHS rules amount to a national ban on gender-affirming care for young people.