Wayne State launches Grand Challenges initiative

DETROIT - On Sept. 10, 2025, Wayne State University's Division of Research & Innovation (DORI) launched a bold and exciting Grand Challenges initiative during an event attended by nearly 250 people.

The purpose of the initiative is to solidify Wayne State's commitment to solving society's most urgent challenges through pioneering research, cross-disciplinary collaboration and purpose-driven education. Selection of the initiative's themes was a time-intensive process that included brainstorming sessions, faculty surveys, town halls with schools and colleges, and numerous meetings with university leadership, university deans, associate deans and directors of research, and the Academic Senate.

"It was important to ensure that the chosen themes aligned with known community-identified challenges and that many viewpoints were considered," said Dr. Ezemenari M. Obasi, vice president for research & innovation. "In addition to choosing themes that have potential impact for future federal research funding at a large scale, they also needed to be centered on impacting our community, state and beyond. With the help of Lewis-Burke Associates, we were able to take our suggested themes and look at where the country is going and how we can position ourselves to get in front of these opportunities."

Four themes were selected that aim to advance bold ideas, accelerate scientific breakthroughs leveraging Wayne State's innovative scientists, and address the following questions:

• How do we advance and empower lifelong health through personalized preventative medicine?
• What critical steps can we take to develop sustainable environments that elevate our quality and length of life?
• How can we leverage responsible human-AI collaborations to allow us to drive discovery, innovation and economic growth?
• How can we develop and deploy smart mobility capabilities into personalized solutions for our rapidly evolving world?

"These four questions are urgent issues that affect the lives of so many people every day," said Obasi. "Through collaboration across our campus and with leaders from city, county, state and industry, Wayne State aims to make bold moves to address these challenges. We have the talent right here on our campus to make an impact through our research and scholarship by creating tools, products and services that will change lives for the better."

The event included two panels that stressed the importance of the four themes. The first panel provided an external perspective around the biggest challenges faced in these four areas and how Wayne State can help address them. The panelists included:

• Tepfirah Rushdan, Director of Sustainability, City of Detroit
• Kathryn Snorrason, Vice President and Associate Chief Mobility Officer, State of Michigan; Office of Future Mobility and Electrification, Michigan Economic Development Corporation
• Chris Daugherty, Industry Executive - Education and Research, Google
• Dr. Bernard Costello, Senior Vice President for Health Affairs, Wayne State University

Rushdan discussed some of the biggest challenges in sustainability, particularly in Detroit, including the need for clean energy, conservation, retrofitting aging infrastructure, and improvements to vacant land that could be used for localized food sources, housing and electrification.

Snorrason discussed Michigan's challenges in mobility, such as how to provide safer, more accessible and environmentally friendly transportation. She also discussed the launch of an advanced aerial mobility initiative that will support efforts in policing, agriculture, transportation, and environmental monitoring, including air and water quality and accessibility. In addition, the state aims to become carbon neutral and will soon flip its light-duty fleets to electric vehicles and eventually do the same for heavy-duty fleets.

Daughtery discussed Google's work in leveraging responsible human-AI collaborations to help drive growth in this field. He discussed how Google continues to grow in the AI space, its work with R1 universities and others, and how it is building on lessons learned to use AI responsibly.

Costello discussed some of the major challenges facing Detroit and Michigan, including higher rates of cancer, infant mortality, heart disease and substance use, and the importance of prioritizing research that improves lifelong health. He also discussed how Wayne State is uniquely positioned to develop preventative solutions to health inequities that other institutions cannot address.

The second panel included faculty leaders who discussed the strengths of the university across the challenge areas and the opportunities to build research that will help Wayne State become a leader in developing solutions and advancing science that will positively impact Detroit and beyond. The presenters included:

• Dr. Sonia Hassan, associate vice president, Office of Women's Health; professor, Division of Maternal-Fetal Medicine, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, School of Medicine
• Dr. Carol Miller, professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, College of Engineering
• Dr. Hengguang Li, chair, Department of Mathematics, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
• Dr. Zheng Dong, associate professor, Department of Computer Science, College of Engineering

Dr. Matthew Allen, chair of the Department of Chemistry and assistant vice president for research innovation, discussed how DORI will support the next steps for the Grand Challenges initiative, which will include bringing together cross-campus teams in each of the four focus areas. In addition, DORI will launch internal seed-funding and development grant programs. There will also be a focus to enhance funder engagement through Lewis-Burke Associates to work with program officers to find funding opportunities that fit the themes of the Grand Challenges.

The Grand Challenges seed grants and development grants programs will provide funding at two tiers. Seed grants will provide $15,000 to $30,000 for one year to support interdisciplinary teams of researchers interested in pursuing a large-scale, center-size funding opportunity in the next one to two years. Development grants will provide $50,000 to $75,000 for 12 to 24 months to support established interdisciplinary research teams in developing a large-scale, center-size grant to be submitted within that timeframe.

"Through collaborations across our campus, with industry and across government agencies, Wayne State's Grand Challenges initiative will help us drive our research to develop innovative ideas and solutions that impact people's lives in so many ways," said Obasi. "Through an important team approach to science, Wayne State University stands ready to create a future that will benefit Detroit and beyond."

To view the Wayne State University Grand Challenges event launch, visit youtube.com/watch?v=3cfXEBWqakc.

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Wayne State University is one of the nation's pre-eminent public research universities in an urban setting. Through its multidisciplinary approach to research and education, and its ongoing collaboration with government, industry and other institutions, the university seeks to enhance economic growth and improve the quality of life in the city of Detroit, state of Michigan and throughout the world. For more information about research at Wayne State University, visit research.wayne.edu .