UMD Launches Inaugural Grand Challenges Graduate Communities

Three scholarly communities in a new University of Maryland graduate housing complex will encourage students to collaborate across disciplines to advance innovation, research and global problem-solving.

The Grand Challenges Graduate Communities, or (GC)², in Discovery House will focus on artificial intelligence, future cities, and the food-water-energy-health nexus in a unique initiative at UMD to combine living, learning, professional development and public-impact work. Each community will be led by a faculty fellow to shape and lead the program, and help graduate students build connections across campus and beyond.

The inaugural communities—spanning engineering, business, education, data science, artificial intelligence, public health, public policy and related fields—were selected for their interdisciplinary reach, faculty leadership and alignment with the university’s broader grand challenge priorities.

“We are investing in the future leaders, researchers and innovators who will shape a more just, resilient and technologically responsible world as they move forward to take on humanity's grand challenges,” said Stephen Roth, associate provost and dean of The Graduate School.

Grand Challenge Graduate Scholars will collaborate with peers from different disciplines to pursue interdisciplinary research projects, develop innovative solutions, expand mentorship networks and participate in career-focused workshops, speaker series and professional development opportunities. The program will also provide dedicated support for professional development, research activities and community-based collaborations. 

Students living in Discovery House or one of the other two-university-owned communities—Graduate Hills and Graduate Gardens—can apply later this summer to join the inaugural cohort.

The new communities include: 

AI and Knowledge will be led by Peter Steiner, Department of Human Development and Quantitative Methodology, College of Education.

This community centers on one of the most urgent and underexamined questions of our moment: What does it mean to explain and understand something in the age of artificial intelligence? Rather than treating AI as a tool, the community interrogates it as an epistemological challenge, examining how human and machine reasoning can work together in ways that are transparent, rigorous, and intellectually coherent.

ASCEND Fellows: Advancing Solutions for Challenges at the Nexus of Food, Water, Energy, and Health will be led by Wendy Sanhai, Robert H. Smith School of Business. 

ASCEND fellows will develop innovative solutions to some of the world's most pressing challenges at the nexus of food, water, energy, climate and human health. Working across a diverse ecosystem that includes industry, government, academia, professional organizations and global partners, fellows will gain research experience while tackling real-world problems that impact communities locally and worldwide. ASCEND fellows will develop leadership, critical-thinking, core consulting and problem-solving skills while expanding professional networks toward the goals of future internships, collaborations and career opportunities.   

Future Cities will be led by Qingbin Cui, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, A. James Clark School of Engineering. 

This community envisions the cities of the future as neither purely engineered nor purely planned — but co-designed with the communities who inhabit them, shaped by artificial intelligence, real-time data systems, and emerging technologies that can model risk, optimize resources and surface inequities invisible to traditional approaches. Students will work at the frontier of engineering, data science, public policy, planning and public health to translate technological potential into infrastructure that is smarter, more sustainable and more equitable.