About GCSP

The Grand Challenges Scholars Program was founded at Arizona State University in 2011 and contains over 250 undergraduate students.

Students in the Grand Challenges Scholars Program complete curricular and co-curricular experiences to achieve five competencies: Talent (research or creative project experience), Multidisciplinary, Viable Business/Entrepreneurship, Multicultural, and Social consciousness (through service learning). Students develop their own path to achieve these competencies while being mentored by faculty and staff throughout their undergraduate career. Students in the program focus their experiences on the 14 Grand Challenges of Engineering through the NAE Grand Challenges for Engineering themes of healthsustainabilitysecurity, and joy of living.

About the NAE Grand Challenges for Engineering

The National Academy of Engineering in 2007 brought together a panel of leading people in academia, policy, and business with the charge to identify a small number of grand challenges for engineering in the 21st century. This interdisciplinary group concluded that the following 14 areas would be the Grand Challenges of Engineering in the 21st century:

  • Make solar energy economical
  • Provide energy from fusion
  • Develop carbon sequestration methods
  • Manage the nitrogen cycle
  • Provide access to clean water
  • Restore and improve urban infrastructure
  • Advance health informatics
  • Engineer better medicines
  • Reverse-engineer the brain
  • Prevent nuclear terror
  • Secure cyberspace
  • Enhance virtual reality
  • Advance personalized learning
  • Engineer the tools of scientific discovery

Learn more about the NAE Grand Challenges Scholars Program.

Fulton students who complete the program will achieve the national recognition of being a Grand Challenges Scholar, endorsed by both ASU and the NAE, and will be uniquely prepared to collaborate and succeed in a trans-disciplinary and global environment.

Become a Grand Challenges Scholar

Incoming Freshmen and Current Fulton Engineering sophomores, juniors, and seniors are welcome to apply into the program by filling out the appropriate online application.