Release Date: May 9, 2012
May 9, 2012 – WASHINGTON – The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) congratulates 30 students for graduating as NAE Grand Challenges Scholars in 2012. The students will receive diplomas this month from Arizona State University, Duke University, Lafayette College, Louisiana Tech University, Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering, University of Tennessee, and University of Southern California. There are currently 45 Grand Challenges Scholars programs either operating or in development in the United States.
The Grand Challenges Scholars program stemmed from the NAE's 14 Grand Challenges for Engineering. It is a combined curricular and extra-curricular program designed to prepare students to work on problems whose solutions could dramatically improve quality of life around the world. In 2009, leaders from Duke University’s Pratt School of Engineering, the Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering, and the University of Southern California’s Viterbi School of Engineering proposed this new education model. The program employs a number of components, including: research experience, an interdisciplinary curriculum (referred to as Engineering +), entrepreneurship, a global dimension, and service learning.
The 2012 NAE Grand Challenges Scholars are as follows:
Arizona State University:
Bobby Cottam and Guy Vernon Pickett III
Duke University:
Amanda Britt, Maria Gibbs, Catherine Joseph, Greer Mackebee, Andrew Mang, Annelise Mesler, Sidney Primas, Chris Radford, Alex Sun, Andrew Weitz, Xin Xu, and David Yudovich
Lafayette College:
Thomas Benjamin, Felix Hutchison, Jared Katz, Katherine Metcalf, Elliott Mitchell-Colgan, and Yue Yuan
Louisiana Tech:
Megan Carroll, Katherine Elfer, Dela Jakub-Wood, Nishi Mehta
Franklin W. Olin College:
Jeffrey Atkinson, Ananya Kejriwal, and Kevin Simon
University of Tennessee:
Mark E. Walker
University of Southern California:
Samantha Ma and Kristen Sharer
Below is the list of 2011 graduates from the program:
Duke University:
Anna Brown, Jared Dunnmon, Ben Gagne, Francesco LaRocca, Trisha Lowe, Niru Maheswaranathan, Lyndsey Morgan, Eng Seng Ng, and Eric Thorne
Louisiana Tech:
Stephanie Parker and Louis Reis
Olin College:
Marco Morales, Andy Pethan, and Christina Powell
The mission of the National Academy of Engineering is to advance the wellbeing of the nation by promoting a vibrant engineering profession and by marshalling the expertise and insights of eminent engineers to provide independent advice to the federal government on matters involving engineering and technology.
###