Grand Challenges of Engineering

Solving the World’s Toughest Problems

NAE Grand Challenges of Engineering

Engineers make good things happen and want to solve the pressing challenges facing society, today and in the future. As an engineer, you will help solve the problems in health and medicine, security, environment, and many other multidisciplinary areas.

With input from people around the world, an international group of leading technological thinkers identified the Grand Challenges for Engineering in the 21st century. These 14 game-changing goals fall into four cross-cutting themes, all directed at improving life on our planet: Sustainability, Health, Security, and Joy of Living.

“The Grand Challenges set a grander scope for our discipline by changing the conversation about engineering, by providing key aspirational goals and by inspiring the new generations about the importance of engineering as the enabling discipline of our times.”
Dean Yannis YortsosUSC Viterbi School of Engineering

Sustainability

Make Solar Energy More Economical

Solar energy provides less than 1% of the world’s total energy, but it has the potential to provide much, much more. Learn more at the NAE Challenge page.

Provide Energy From Fusion

Human-engineered fusion has been demonstrated on a small scale. The challenge is to scale up the process to commercial proportions, in an efficient, economical, and environmentally benign way. Learn more at the NAE Challenge page.

Develop Carbon Sequestration Methods

Engineers are working on ways to capture and store excess carbon dioxide to prevent global warming. Learn more at the NAE Challenge page.

Manage the Nitrogen Cycle

Engineers can help restore balance to the nitrogen cycle with better fertilization technologies and by capturing and recycling waste. Learn more at the NAE Challenge page.

Provide Access to Clean Water

The world’s water supplies are facing new threats; affordable, advanced technologies could make a difference for millions of people around the world. Learn more at the NAE Challenge page.

Restore and Improve Urban Infrastructure

Good design and advanced materials can improve transportation and energy, water, and waste systems, and also create more sustainable urban environments. Learn more at the NAE Challenge page.

Engineers Without Borders

Student Organization

EWB is a student-run group that chooses projects locally and in countries abroad that include building water treatment systems to increase access to clean water.

Air Quality Lab

Research Lab

The major objective of the USC Aerosol Lab is to investigate the underlying mechanisms that produce the health effects associated with exposure to air pollutants generated by a variety of sources

SC Solar Car Team

Student Design Team

Students are working to make solar energy more economical by designing, building, and testing their solar-powered car to race against other universities.

Childress Research Group

Environmental Engineering Research

Led by Dr. Amy Childress, this research team is focusing on innovating membrane solutions to assist in providing more access to clean water.

Health

Engineer Better Medicines

Engineers are developing new systems to use genetic information, sense small changes in the body, assess new drugs, and deliver vaccines. Learn more at the NAE Challenge page.

Advance Health Informatics

Stronger health information systems not only improve everyday medical visits, but they are essential to counter pandemics and biological or chemical attacks. Learn more at the NAE Challenge page.

Reverse Engineer the Brain

The intersection of engineering and neuroscience promises great advances in health care, manufacturing, and communication. Learn more at the NAE Challenge page.

USC Michelson Center for Convergent Bioscience

Biomedical Research

This research center's goal is to address the most critical health issues of our time. Pictured above is Stacey Finley (left), who is using a $3.1 million grant to find new cancer treatments by modeling the growth of cancer cells.

MEDesign

Student Organization

This group provides students with hands-on medical device design experience by entering medical device design competitions, participating in make-a-thons, and taking on independent medical device projects.

ImmunoBioengineering & Bionanotech Lab

Research Lab

This lab’s overarching research theme is to develop design principles and create synthetic biology tools for modulating immune response and for targeted delivery of genes and drugs.

The BioRC Project

Research Group

This lab, led by Electrical Engineering Prof. Alice Parker, is working towards reverse-engineering the brain by employing analog computations to emulate neural structures.

Security

Secure Cyberspace

It’s more than preventing identity theft. Critical systems in banking, national security, and physical infrastructure may be at risk. Learn more at the NAE Challenge page.

Prevent Nuclear Terror

The need for technologies to prevent and respond to a nuclear attack is growing. Learn more at the NAE Challenge page.

CybOrg

Student Organization

Cyber Security and Forensics at USC, also known as CybOrg, brings together students in the fields of cyber security, digital forensics, and incident response.

Center for Computer Systems Security

Research Center

USC's Center for Computer Systems Security (CCSS) conducts research and provides education in the crucial disciplines of computer, network and application security.

The Information Sciences Institute

Research Center

With roots in early Internet infrastructure research and development, ISI's Networking and Cybersecurity Division carries out a broad program of research spanning the areas of networking scientific investigations, Internet operations and governance, cybersecurity research topics, and a variety of infrastructure projects for experimentation and collaboration.

Minor in Applied Computer Security

Engineering Minor Program

This minor program teaches students the theoretical concepts and technical skills — including hacking, ethics, and forensics — to create and maintain secure computer systems and networks.

Joy of Living

Enhancing Virtual Reality

True virtual reality creates the illusion of actually being in a difference space. It can be used for training, treatment, and communication. Learn more at the NAE Challenge page.

Advancing Personalized Learning

Instruction can be individualized based on learning styles, speeds, and interests to make learning more reliable. Learn more at the NAE Challenge page.

Engineering the tools for scientific discovery

In the century ahead, engineers will continue to be partners with scientists in the great quest for understanding many unanswered questions of nature. Learn more at the NAE Challenge page.

USC Center for Artificial Intelligence

Research Center

This center conducts research in Artificial Intelligence to help solve the most difficult social problems facing our world.

Code the Change

Student Organization

Code the Change is a student organization at USC that drives social impact through software projects for non profit organizations

Center for Intelligent Environments

Research Center

This center supports ground-breaking research and brings together the world’s foremost leaders, scholars, innovators, and intellectuals to engage in dialogue and debate, as well as form partnerships that promote human-centered design and integration of intelligent technologies into built environments.

Signal Analysis and Interpretation Lab

Research Lab

SAIL focuses on human-centered signal & information processing that address key societal needs. Bridging science and engineering, SAILers pioneer behavioral signal processing and behavioral machine intelligence, affective computing, multimodal signal processing, computational media intelligence and computational speech science.