Say you’re visiting Northeastern University’s Silicon Valley campus for the first time and want to know the best place to park. Or maybe you’re a rising sophomore who spent the last year studying in Oakland or London. As you get ready to move to Boston, you want to familiarize yourself with the layout of the campus or available safety escort services.
No matter if it’s studies, work or a quick visit that brings you to any of Northeastern’s 14 campuses, the university’s newest official safety mobile application Husky Safe has you covered.
“Think of Husky Safe as a repository of all resources,” said Regina Coppa, associate vice president of security technology and global site security at Northeastern.
The app is a centralized tool to find campus-specific information and support, like phone numbers for local emergency services or maps. It’s for anyone spending time in the university’s global network.
First, app users select one of three profiles that best fits them – Student, Faculty/Staff or Guest. Northeastern email credentials are needed to sign in as student, faculty or staff member, but no account is needed as a guest.
From the “Home” tab, users can toggle through any of the campuses and see the local time and weather. Here, there are options for a one-tap connection with campus security, 911 and 999, or a 24/7 non-emergency chat feature meant for reporting suspicious activity or receiving guidance from a public safety official. The “Resources” tab offers localized information like campus parking, important university phone numbers, medical centers, 24-hour hotlines and more.
Husky Safe works in tandem with SafeZone, the third-party app already in the university’s safety toolkit. Northeastern students, faculty and staff can use SafeZone to request a public safety response to a specified location in an emergency, as well as wellbeing assistance, first aid or general information. If activated on a Northeastern campus, SafeZone automatically notifies campus security that help has been requested.
But rather than use another third-party app, it was important that Husky Safe was built in-house for the collaboration between IT Services and the Division of Global Safety and Policing, university officials said.
“Developing Husky Safe internally gave us the flexibility to integrate the safety tools Northeastern already uses and create an experience specifically for our community, rather than trying to fit our needs into an off-the-shelf solution,” said Zia Anderson, a mobile applications engineer at Northeastern.
The Husky Safe app came about in November 2024 as part of the continued development of the university’s security plan and “particularly to match the mobility around the network,” Coppa said, referring to the ability for students to study on multiple campuses or beyond Boston.
“As travel increases, as the global system evolves, we can begin to tailor this app for anything that we need,” she said.
In addition to SafeZoneand now Husky Safe, Northeastern is also rolling out access to the Everbridge 360 app, dedicated specifically to location-based emergency alerts for those with a university email credential. The organization code is “Northeastern.”
All three apps are available for download in the Apple App Store or in Google Play.
