Students choose Santa Clara University because it empowers them to make a difference for the common good. Here, you don’t have to wait until graduation to create an impact—you can start making a difference now!
Chances are you or someone you know has had a loved one with dementia. Dementia is the most expensive disease in America, with costs projected to exceed $1 trillion by 2050. Unlike cancer, diabetes, or heart disease, dementia has limited treatment options, making care—not treatment—the primary economic and human burden. While many initiatives across the globe focus on treatment and cures, Santa Clara University addresses the urgent need for innovative dementia care solutions through the Cura Fellows Program.
SCU’s Healthcare Innovation and Design Program and Ignatian Center launched the Cura Fellows Program to shape future leaders in dementia care innovation. We approach this as a creative and interdisciplinary problem. Mirroring real-world settings, we converge student and faculty expertise in public health, gerontology, neuroscience, data science, business, engineering, and human-centered design. Students build deep empathy for caregivers and are prepared to tackle complex dementia care challenges that require technical expertise, design thinking and entrepreneurial skills, and experience working on interdisciplinary teams. Rooted in Jesuit values, the Cura Fellows Program emphasizes engaged learning, commitment to students, community, diversity, and cross-disciplinary approaches.
"At its core, the Cura initiative couples two key features of Jesuit education — a deep engagement and encounter with others, in all their humanity, and a reflective process of discernment to find responses and solutions both for oneself and life choices and for the world and our shared life together. We are delighted to have the Ignatian Center integrally involved in this process, accompanying students in this critical work and growth."
— Fr. Matthew Carnes, S.J., Vice President for Mission and Ministry at Santa Clara University
The Cura Fellows program brings together undergraduate teams to collaborate with faculty and off-campus partners specializing in elder care, gaining hands-on experience through research, prototyping, and community-based activities. This collaborative setting provides a platform for helping students build their skills and find their path. Imagine:
- public health students helping to uncover critical needs,
- engineering majors designing innovative technology,
- communication majors crafting compelling narratives to present their value.
By working together, students take an integrated approach to dementia care as they engage in needs assessment, product development, user research, and human-centered design. The design cycle spans at least one academic year, ensuring depth, iteration, and real-world impact. Through these experiential learning opportunities, they gain a deeper understanding of memory care challenges and develop the skills needed to create impactful approaches while humanizing and applying creativity and compassion to a pressing healthcare issue.
Piloted in 2022 through a collaboration between the Healthcare Innovation and Design Program and the Richard and Maude Ferry Foundation, the program brought together four student teams to develop dementia care solutions. After pitching their concepts to a panel of experts, the cohort refined a single idea—an immersive VR simulation training prototype for caregivers. This product, designed using human-centered design principles, was later featured on CBS News, showcased at health technology conferences, and licensed to the nonprofit Content for Good. The remarkable success of this process led to the establishment of the Cura Fellows program, an annual student fellowship named after 'Cura Personalis,' a term with strong Jesuit roots meaning 'care for the whole person.'
Undergraduate students in good academic and behavioral standing who will be returning as sophomores or juniors next academic year are eligible to apply for the Cura Fellows program.
Fellows must commit to a full academic year and participate in a cohort-style immersive experience that fosters a continuous cycle of learning and action through encounter, reflection, innovation, and evaluation. Throughout the year, fellows will enroll in a two-unit course each quarter, equipping them with the principles of Ignatian pedagogy. This structured approach begins with context (memory care), followed by experience and reflection (community-based learning), action (ideation and prototyping), and concludes with evaluation (storytelling and reflection).
Cura Fellows receive a $1,000 stipend for each quarter of the academic year. The fellowship includes both curricular and co-curricular activities, requiring a commitment of 4–6 hours per week, totaling up to 60 hours per quarter, and runs throughout the entire academic year.
Become a Cura Fellow and make a difference today!
Hear from two of our students below on how participating in dementia care initiatives has shaped their journey at SCU. If you are passionate about driving innovation in dementia care, apply to join the Cura Fellows program to gain real-world experience that could shape and transform your career path.