Christopher Young


Christopher Young

Dr. Christopher (Chris) S. Young, PhD, has been active in search and rescue (SAR) since 1981, managing searches since 1986. He serves as chair of the Bay Area Search and Rescue Council, Inc. (BASARC). He is an instructor trainer for the National Association For Search And Rescue (NASAR) and is also an instructor on other specialized topics in SAR. Chris has written, published, and presented search management papers at national and international conferences. He co‐authored “Urban Search – Managing Missing Person Searches in the Urban Environment” (dbS Publication, 2007), author of “Intelligent Search – Managing the Intelligence Process in the Search for Missing Persons” (dbS Publication, 2022), and is a contributing author on several other books on search and rescue. Additionally, he is a reserve deputy. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Portsmouth, UK in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Centre for Missing Persons.

Date unspecified
Location unspecified

Intelligence is a process by which certain types of information/data are acquired or requested by those directing a missing person incident. The process continues by rallying teams of resources to collect, process and exploit, analyze and produce useful information that can then be disseminated and integrated into actionable plans. Traditionally the collection, processing, exploitation, analysis, and production has been done by hand on paper and sorted by experienced search leaders and training of the human brain. However, what if this work could be done by computers and artificial intelligence? This is the hypothesis we are exploring through a privately funded university effort. The “Artificial Intelligence for Search and Rescue” is a project with goals to use AI and related computational methods and tools to support Search and Rescue (SAR) missions. This project is a collaboration with California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly) Computer Science and Software Engineer Department Dr. Franz Kurfess, undergraduate and graduate students in alliance with alumnus Gary Bloom and Christopher Young both experienced search and rescue incident managers. The project began in the summer of 2021 through privately funded research, senior projects, and class projects. This presentation will describe the initial work including the collecting and consolidating the pertinent mechanisms for storing and processing data and the research of the potential artificial intelligence options. This will conclude with a demonstration of the working model and how it can be integrated into an active missing person incident.