WVU biometrics program granted $1.5M in cloud technology from MorphoTrak

MorphoTrak, a subsidiary of Safran Identity and Security, will donate $1.5 million in access to MorphoCloud to West Virginia University (WVU) to support the university’s biometrics and forensics research and education programs.

The current version of MorphoCloud includes services for fingerprint, palmprint and facial recognition search and verification with iris recognition and video analytics coming in the near future. As part of the donation, MorphoTrak will provide technology training and support to WVU to operate the multi-biometric identification capability of MorphoCloud.

MorphoTrak has collaborated with the WVU biometrics program for several years, supporting a number of researchers’ projects. The MorphoTrak engineering and development facility is just a short distance from the advanced research occurring at WVU’s Biometrics & Identification Innovation Center, staffed by a multi-disciplinary group of WVU researchers.

“MorphoTrak located its West Virginia corporate office in Morgantown for a strategic reason,” said B. Scott Swann, MorphoTrak vice president of federal operations and innovation, and a WVU graduate. “We want to foster a close academic partnership with WVU. We are very excited about this partnership. The academic and research values should be long lasting and definitely go beyond the monetary value of this donation.”

“We are pleased to have access to this world-class biometric system that integrates analytics from multiple sources,” added WVU President Gordon Gee. “As a leader in biometric technology research and the FBI Biometric Center of Excellence’s lead academic partner, West Virginia University’s agreement with MorphoTrak takes us to a new and exciting level of research in this emerging field.”

Keith Morris, associate professor in the Department of Forensic and Investigative Science, and Matthew Valenti, professor in the Lane Department of Computer and Electrical Engineering, will be the lead researchers on the MorphoCloud project.

Article Topics

biometrics research  |  Morpho Cloud  |  MorphoTrak  |  West Virginia