Sheldon Jacobson: Research on airport screening

Sheldon Jacobson of the Department of Computer Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is an expert in operations research, and while his efforts have stretched from vaccine stockpiling to statistics, his studies on security continue to influence policy and practice, including screening activities at airports. In this full interview, Jacobson discusses the evolution of airport screening. In a recent issue of IIE Transactions, he is co-author on a paper that looks at how comprehensive airport screening may actually be less effective than more targeted screening approaches.