Program Director

Olgha Qaqish, PhD is the director of the Engineering Grand Challenges Scholars Program at NC State – COE Academic Affairs. She tirelessly collaborates with university and industry partners to support the Grand Challenges Scholars community and create professional development opportunities for undergraduate engineering students, focusing on first and second year students. Dr. Qaqish is an educator, researcher, mentor, and a lifelong learner. She holds a patent: Methods, systems and computer readable media for applying multi-push acoustic radiation force to samples and monitoring a response to quantify mechanical properties of samples. She is also a co-author of a mathematics textbook: Algebra Essentials and a past Community College Math instructor. Additionally, she serves as a researcher and an Engineering instructor of core first year engineering courses, E101: Introduction to Engineering & Problem Solving and E102: Engineering for the 21st Century. She also has taught a core sophomore course, She is a strong advocate for exploring and implementing strategies for successful academic and social achievement of engineering education and customizes her educational approach to enhance the diversity of strengths of each individual engineering student while also shoring up areas of relative improvements.