Hello! My name is Kourtney Rutkowski; I am a Mechanical Engineering major at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). I am a member of the UMBC Honor's College, a Center for Women in Technology Scholar, and a member of the Grand Challenges Scholar Program (GCSP). I am pursuing a career in Environmental Engineering with the hope to work with alternative energy in order to reduce the effects of climate change, to maintain our ecosystems, and to help improve the quality of life worldwide.
GCSP is a scholar's program dedicated to grow students through skills and experiences so that they can tackle the National Academy of Engineering’s (NAE) Grand Challenges. For more information on the NAE Grand Challenges, visit here, and for more information on the UMBC GCSP specifically, visit here.
My motivation to join the GCSP stemmed from a desire to help both people and the planet, and I know that there are a lot of challenges in doing so. I think this program can help give us the tools needed to tackle these problems, and give us a foundation to go off and solve them.