Department of Environmental Resources Engineering
NAE Grand Challenge Scholars Program
ESF Joins National Program
The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) created the Grand Challenges Scholars Program (GCSP) to build talent and inspire the next generation of leaders solving the most pressing problems impacting humanity and biodiversity. The NAE Grand Challenge (GC) vision is a continuation of life on the planet, making our world more sustainable, safe, healthy, and joyful. Students in the NAE GCSP complete 5 competencies:
- Talent: mentored research or creative experience related to a Grand Challenge-like topic.
- Multidisciplinary: understanding multi disciplinarity of engineering systems solutions developed through personal engagement.
- Business/entrepreneurship: understanding, preferably developed though experience, of the necessity of a viable business model for solution implementation.
- Multicultural: understanding different cultures, preferably through multicultural experiences, to ensure cultural acceptance of proposed engineering solutions.
- Social consciousness: understanding that the engineering solutions should primarily serve people and society reflecting social consciousness.
ESF joined the prestigious NAE GCSP in 2014. Students satisfying these 5 components obtain a designation of completion of the ESF NAE GCSP on their college transcripts.
This program fits within ESF's educational mission to advance knowledge and skills to promote the leadership necessary for the stewardship of both the natural and designed environments, and is a form of humanitarian engineering.
How to Apply
To become an NAE GCSP Scholar, students need to be in an engineering program and have a GPA of 2.7 or higher.
To apply, download and complete the application, then send it as a PDF attachment to the ESF NAE GCSP Director, Dr. Ted Endreny, P.H., P.E (te@esf.edu).
- ESF NAE GCSP Application. Please note the application may use some older names for the NAE competencies.
Applications are welcome year round; please spread the word about this amazing program.