Video feature: 'Grand Challenges'

Grand Challenges index

Stephen Pacala directs the Princeton Environmental Institute, which collaborates with the School of Engineering and Applied Science and the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs to oversee Princeton's Grand Challenges Program. Grand Challenges is an interdisciplinary research and teaching effort to tackle global environmental problems that have scientific, technological and policy implications.

Photo by Denise Applewhite

 Video stills by Nick Barberio

Stephen Pacala, director of the Princeton Environmental Institute (PEI), narrates this overview of the Grand Challenges Program. Launched in 2007, the program is an ambitious and broadly inclusive University initiative that integrates research and teaching to address complex global environmental problems with scientific, technological and policy dimensions.

"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," Pacala said.

A collaboration among PEI, the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, the program seeks solutions to problems of energy and climate, sustainable development in Africa, and global health and infectious disease.

The video includes testimonials from faculty and students about how Grand Challenges is leveraging outstanding scholarship, fostering interdisciplinary collaboration, and transforming undergraduate and graduate learning experiences.