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Lyles College of Engineering

Grand Challenge Scholars Program at Fresno State

The National Academy of Engineering has identified 14 Grand Challenges in the 21st Century. The Grand Challenges are a call to action and serve as a focal point for society's attention to opportunities and challenges affecting our quality of life.

The Lyles College of Engineering at California State University, Fresno  is among more than 120 U.S. engineering schools leading a transformative movement in engineering education.

The Lyles College of Engineering's Grand Challenge Scholars Program  will be aimed at preparing undergraduates to solve “Grand Challenges” - complex yet achievable goals to improve national and international health, security, sustainability and quality of life in the 21st century.

The program will have five components:

  • Hands-on Project or  Research Experience related to a Grand Challenge
  • Interdisciplinary Curriculum that complements engineering fundamentals with courses in other fields, preparing engineering students to work at the overlap with public policy, business, law, ethics, human behavior, risk, and the arts, as well as medicine and the sciences  
  • Entrepreneurship: Preparing students to translate invention to innovation; to develop market ventures that scale to global solutions in the public interest. Click here for Lyles College of Engineering's Innoventures Program.
  • Global Dimension:  Developing and deepening students’ social consciousness and their motivation to bring their technical expertise to bear on societal problems through mentored experiential learning with real clients
  • Service Learning: Developing and deepening students’ social consciousness and their motivation to bring their technical expertise to bear on societal problems

Students in the program will develop expertise  in one or more of the areas listed above and exposure or experience in each of the others. The program will provide opportunities for the students to reflect on how such combined capabilities can empower them to become leaders in addressing societal challenges in the U.S. and abroad.

Further details on how students can participate and program curriculum details to be announced in Fall 2017 semester.

For more information, please contact:

Dr. Ram Nunna
Dean, Lyles College of Engineering
559.278.2500
RNUNNA@csufresno.edu

Grand Challenges logo


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