Grand

Challenges
Program

 Building on the Universitys informal

motto, Princeton in the nations
service and in the service of all
nations, the Grand Challenges
Program taps into the strong sense
of social responsibility embraced by
todays students.

magine a world in which the brightest minds

work together to solve humanitys most pressing
environmental problems, a transformative
world that expands classroom learning beyond
traditional academic and national boundaries.
This is the world of Grand Challenges, a
powerful new university-wide initiative that
leverages Princetons unique strengthscuttingedge research, exceptional undergraduate teaching,
and novel independent workto examine urgent
challenges in energy, development, and health.
Grand Challenges addresses these pressing
problems by establishing a community of engaged
faculty, researchers, and graduate and undergraduate
students; stimulating interdisciplinary research;
introducing new courses; and creating unique
opportunities for students to work alongside elite
faculty in the laboratory and in the field. The
Program is developing a generation of leaders with
a global perspective, practical problem-solving
experience, and a commitment to improving
outcomes in a resource-challenged global economy.

Grand Challenges Research

Grand Challenges involves cutting-edge interdisciplinary research carried out locally and around
the world and engages a broad cross-section of
the University community to explore the scientific,
technical, public policy, and human dimensions of
global environmental problems.
The Siebel Energy Challenge confronts climate
change, the management of fossil-fuel carbon, the
expansion of non-fossil energy sources, and other
environmental impacts of the energy system.
The Development Challenge tackles the difficult task
of eliminating poverty in Africa while conserving
the continents biodiversity and vast store of natural
resources.
The Health Challenge focuses on developing methods
to prevent and treat HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria,
and other infectious diseases around the globe.
Thirty-five faculty-led projects have been
launched since the program was established, involving
more than 75 faculty, 60 researchers, 100 Ph.D.

candidates, and 400 undergraduate students from 29

academic disciplines.

Grand Challenges Education

The Programs academic mission is advanced through
a dynamic web of introductory and advanced-level
courses, faculty-mentored internships, and
opportunities for undergraduate independent study
on campus and abroad.
Students may choose from more than 275
courses including 44 new courses that leverage
insights emerging from Grand Challenges research
projects. Multiple courses involve field research
including locations in Bermuda, Kenya, Norway,
Panama, Saudi Arabia, and South Africa.
Each summer, undergraduates participate as
interns on faculty-led and self-initiated projects.
These immersion experiences inspire further
academic inquiry, leading to robust research in
preparation for independent work in the junior
and senior year.
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Rohit Gawande 11 analyzed

the energy efficiency of low
income housing in Trenton,
New Jersey. Photo courtesy
of Rohit Gawande

Sara Peters 11 worked in

New York City on the energy
and environment desk at
the New York Times. Photo
courtesy of Sara Peters

Amy Gobel 12 conducted

nitrogen fixation research
at the Bermuda Institute of
Ocean Sciences in Bermuda.
Photo courtesy of Amy Gobel

United States (181)

Kathryn Laney 10 examined
fuel cell efficiencies in Jay
Benzigers lab. She is one of
81 undergraduates to hold
Grand Challenges internships
on campus since 2007. Photo
courtesy of Kathryn Laney

Bermuda (11)
Mexico
(1)
Jonathan Hezghia 13
addressed water quality issues
in El Salvador. Photo courtesy
of Jonathan Hezghia

Guatemala (2)
Nicaragua (1)
El Salvador (1)
Costa Rica (1)
Panama (2)
Ecuador (3)

Internships and Senior Thesis

Research Around the Globe
From 2007-2011, 400 undergraduates held Grand Challenges internships
and/or conducted senior thesis research in 50 countries around the globe
including positions with faculty-led research projects and on assignments
with local and international NGOs, and academic, government, and
industry enterprises.
4

Jamaica (1)

Belize
(1)

Peru
(11)

Chile (1)

Brazil (5)

Finland (2)

Norway (1)

England (1)

Emily Trautner 11 interned

with the Global Fund in
Switzerland to fight AIDS,
tuberculosis, and malaria.
Photo courtesy of Emily
Trautner

Denmark (1)
Netherlands (3)

Edward Lee 12 researched

HIV/AIDS at the Instituto de
Salud Carlos III in Spain. Photo
courtesy of Edward Lee

Germany (2)
South
Korea
(7)

Switzerland (4)
Spain
(1)

Turkey (1)

China (4)

Italy (4)
Nepal (2)
India (8)
Sierra Leone
(14)
Nigeria
(1)
Ghana
Liberia (16)
(4)
Zambia
(1)
Namibia
(1)

South Africa (27)

Ethiopia (5)
Uganda (1)
Kenya (32)
Rwanda (2)
Tanzania (8)
Mozambique (2)

Thailand
(4)

Vietnam
(3)
Singapore
(1)

Chenyu Zheng 12 interned

with the Joint U.S.-China
Collaboration on Clean Energy
(JUCCCE) in China. Photo
courtesy of Chenyu Zheng

Madagascar (1)
Australia (1)

Zimbabwe (1)
Botswana (4)
Lesotho (1)
Jeremy Chen 11 and
Rodrigo Munoz Rogers 12
researched the dynamics
of belowground carbon in
Botswana savannas. Photo
courtesy of Jeremy Chen

New Zealand
(1)

The Siebel Energy Challenge

asika Bawa 12 joined the Greening IT

research project because she wanted to
address the burgeoning energy consumption
of information technology. Rather than working
on something that might be interesting a decade
from now, this project focuses on energy
conservation today which can not be
postponed until tomorrow, says the
junior electrical engineering major.
Information technology (IT) is
estimated to consume 2.5%
of global electricity, the
equivalent of one billion
tons of CO2 produced
annually. And its share is
growing rapidly as end-users
substitute remote collaboration for
air travel and install energy monitoring
technologies to control rising costs.
Greening IT is developing
techniques to reduce electricity
6

usage within the information technology

industryespecially among big users such as
Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Applewithout
compromising product quality and response time.
One of 16 research projects undertaken by the
Siebel Energy Challenge, the project is
an interdisciplinary collaboration
involving computer science faculty
Michael Freedman, Margaret
Martonosi, and Jennifer Rexford,
and professor of electrical
engineering, Mung Chiang.
Grand Challenges
brings together people from
different departments to attack
problems that require broad
interdisciplinary thinking,
says Martonosi. Our effort
spans undergraduate research,
graduate research, and extensive
faculty involvement. Six

 The Grand Challenges Program has catalyzed cross-department and

interdisciplinary interactions that have enriched our research.
Margaret R. Martonosi, professor of computer science

undergraduates in addition to Bawa have worked

on dimensions of Greening IT including projects
that establish algorithms for monitoring data traffic
and that model dynamic load balancing across data
centers and green backbone networks.
Bawas work began as a junior independent
project. Working alongside professor Chiang, she
focused on whether a simple energy saving technique
turning off unused electrical resources when they
are not needed, a practice called sleepingcould
be made attractive to big commercial users that have
to balance energy usage, response time, and other
service-quality issues. Bawa simulated theoretical
algorithms in the engineering lab. I deployed the
sleeping protocol that theory determined was optimal

and put it to use on an actual controller and servers

and measured the total energy consumed. she says.
Greening IT has developed several prototype
techniques for reducing energy consumption at
data centers while also improving the efficiency
of data traffic between centers. A $100,000 Google
Innovations Award is enabling the team to continue
their work.
For Bawa, Grand Challenges blends learning
and life. It is a wonderful opportunity to be involved
in something important at such an early stage of my
academic career, she says. I feel like I am making
an impact on a pertinent global issue. And there is
no substitute for the feeling that you can make a
difference.
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The Development Challenge

and animal movements, and the economic and

fter spending the spring semester of her
physical health of the pastoral people who inhabit the
sophomore year with Princetons Semester
fragile African landscape.
in Kenya Program, Erin Buchholtz 11 couldnt
Sub-Saharan Africa faces particularly complex
wait to go back. I fell in love with the wildlife there,
social and ecological challenges, including poverty,
recalls the ecology and evolutionary biology major.
limited access to education
I decided I wanted to spend
and medical care, infectious
more time in Kenya and, with
disease, poor sanitation,
support of the Grand Challenges
water scarcity, environmental
Program, I identified a senior
degradation, and land use
thesis topic that let me
conflicts, all of which are
focus on ecology while also
potentially exacerbated by
incorporating broader societal
incipient consequences of
considerations.
Erin
Buchholtz
11
(far
left)
during
the
Semester
in
the
climate change.
Buchholtz returned to
Field Program in Kenya, March 2010.
Working out of the Mpala
Kenya during the summer of
Research Centre in north central Kenya, Buchholtz
2010 as part of a team working on Water, Savannas,
and Society. Under the direction of Daniel Rubenstein, examined how the grazing habits of zebras affect
dryland vegetation. Her observations expanded
professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and
understanding of one piece of a complicated puzzle
director of the Development Challenge, this interthat confronts much of Africa: the impact of rainfall
disciplinary research project explores the intricate
variation on land use and the store of natural
relationships between water and vegetation, wildlife
8

 Bringing together faculty, students, and post-doctoral fellows from

different disciplines to work together in the field is an experience that
energizes and empowers everyone.
Daniel I. Rubenstein, Class of 1877 Professor of Zoology. Chair, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
resources with ramifications for human and animal
wellbeing. My research focuses on how wild
herbivores use the landscape, and hopefully will
help predict their impact on vegetation under varying
rainfall conditions, Buchholtz says.
Results emerging from the summer research
project formed the central dataset for her senior
thesis, Precipitation, Plants, and Herbivory: Comparing
Top-down and Bottom-up Effects on a Heterogeneous
Savanna Landscape in Kenya, and complement the
outcomes of work being done by others on the project
which since its inception has involved 5 Princeton
faculty, 6 postdoctoral researchers, 10 graduate
students, and 20 undergraduates.

Water, Savannas, and Society has expanded

understanding of livestock-rangeland dynamics and
contributed to the development of alternative herding
practices that are being adopted by resident herders
with benefits for reduced habitat degradation.
Insights have been integrated into several courses
including a freshman seminar, several upper level
courses, and a graduate seminar. The goal of Grand
Challenges is to solve some of the thorniest issues
facing people and the environment, says Rubenstein.
The students are passionate about making a
difference. We offer them the chance to go to new
places, where they can look at the world through a
different lens.
9

The Health Challenge

ova Sun 11 spent the summer of 2010 combing

through mountains of data from across the
United States on antibiotic prescriptions and
bacterial resistance. Her Grand Challenges goal:
to extract a link between doctors
prescribing practices and the
worsening global problem of drugresistant diseases such as MRSA,
a bacterial infection known in the
scientific world as methicillinresistant Staphylococcus aureus.
Her diligence as a Health
Challenge intern at the Center for
Disease Dynamics, Economics &
Policy in Washington, D.C. moved
global research a step forward
by uncovering a strong temporal
Lova Sun 11
connection in disease dynamics:
antibiotic resistance peaks nationwide just a few
months after a winter peak in antibiotic prescriptions.
Sun is one of nine undergraduates who has
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worked on various dimensions of Drug Resistance

and Social Normsan interdisciplinary Health
Challenge research project led by Simon Levin,
professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, and
Ramanan Laxminarayan, associate
research scholar within the
Princeton Environmental Institute
and lecturer in the Department of
Economics. Overall, the project
seeks strategies to reduce the
likelihood of antibiotic and antimalarial resistance, and assesses
the effectiveness of alternative
treatment strategies on the
emergence of drug resistant strains.
Similar to other Grand
Challenges projects, the topics
being investigated by the Drug
Resistance and Social Norms team are informed
by the perspectives of faculty, postdoctoral
researchers, and graduate and undergraduate

 The Grand Challenges Program has enabled serious undergraduate

involvement in large-scale research projects. Their contributions have
enhanced our research.

Simon A. Levin, George M. Moffett Professor of Biology

students from multiple academic disciplines. This
multidisciplinary approach is considered essential
to tackling complex global environmental challenges
whose solutions require innovations and advances
occurring across technology, science, and policy
perspectives.
Sun says she found special value in the
interdisciplinary approach. Grand Challenges offers
a unique focus that combines many of the fields
I am interested in, including health, ecology, and
policy, she says. It has also introduced me to other
disciplines such as economics and statistics which
have become strongly integrated into my work. Ive
come to understand that a synthesis of many different

approaches and perspectives is often needed to

produce optimal results and affect real change.
Like many Grand Challenges interns, Sun elected
to use her summer experience as the basis for her
senior thesis, Seasonality and Temporal Correlation
between Community Antibiotic Use and Bacterial
Resistance in the United States.
Grand Challenges resources allow senior
theses to originate from the field, in the context of the
real world, says Laxminarayan, who served as Suns
thesis advisor. Particularly in global health, this is a
better model for launching undergraduate research
than sending students to the library to read published
papers.
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Guyot Hall | Princeton University | Princeton, New Jersey 08544-1003

For more information, see http://www.princeton.edu/grandchallenges or email pei@princeton.edu

The Grand Challenges Program is designed to help solve some of

the most important problems that confront humanity by training a
generation of leaders committed to these problems, and by recruiting
the talents of faculty, postdoctoral fellows, graduate students, and
undergraduates to research solutions.
Stephen W. Pacala, Frederick D. Petrie Professor in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.

Director, Princeton Environmental Institute

Grand Challenges is a collaboration among the Princeton Environmental Institute, the School of Engineering and Applied Science, and the Woodrow
Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and is funded through 2012 by the High Meadows Foundation, the Thomas and Stacey Siebel
Foundation, and the Princeton Environmental Institute.
Front cover: With Grand Challenges project funding to develop sustainable technologies for Africa, faculty member Winston Soboyejo developed a
solar-powered refrigeration system for camel transport of vaccines to remote areas in Kenya and Ethiopia.
Back cover: Holder Hall archway.
Photo credits: Tiffany Tong, Brian Wilson, Jasika Bawa, Holly Welles, Daniel Rubenstein, Lova Sun, Mahlon Lovett
This report was printed on 100% recycled FSC-certified paper. The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification guarantees that trees used to
produce this paper were procured from responsibly managed forests.