Research universities are increasingly building “grand challenges” programs to motivate researchers and provide funding opportunities for interdisciplinary research aimed at complex societal problems. However, literature describes numerous barriers to team science research within current academic structures ranging from promotion and tenure to strains on faculty time. This research studies the dynamics of Grand Challenges program teams at the University of New Mexico (UNM) to understand key aspects of innovative, productive, and community-engaged interdisciplinary science teams in their early stages. Such programs provide unique opportunities to study team science, which is important for researchers and university administrators to understand if we want to promote research that addresses grand challenges such as climate change, substance abuse disorders, multicultural education, pandemics and more. In this study, we interviewed twelve interdisciplinary science team leaders, and one leading team member, from the University of New Mexico Grand Challenges Program. These team leaders, or what the Program calls “co-conveners”, volunteered to be the team leaders on their application to the Program and helped establish their teams. During the interviews, we asked them questions about team membership, formation and recruitment; psychological safety and the most promising practices on their teams; and team structure and leadership. Our interview data helps us understand motivation for joining interdisciplinary science teams, the importance of prior collaboration ties, how teams develop roles and collaborative processes, and how teams overcome challenges in their initial stages. Our research found that early- and late-career researchers saw the same benefits of joining the Program, but late-career researchers were perceived to experience more downsides. The perceived benefits of participation across team members were the opportunity to conduct interdisciplinary research with institutional structure and support as well as the credibility and promotion the researchers gained through the Program. Preliminary findings include that academic career stage was an important aspect of diversity for successful teams that influenced team structure and cohesion; a mix of early- and late-career researchers was advantageous. Prior collaboration ties were essential for team formation and most teams found disciplinary diversity as contributing to team success. Two of the more structured teams defined their roles based on career stage and discipline and achieved higher task autonomy. Having experienced late-career team members also helped teams prepare for conflict and challenges and contributed to psychological safety. These findings demonstrate the importance of providing institutional infrastructure for interdisciplinary science at universities. In addition, they show how team diversity and formation contribute to successful team structure for early-stage teams.