A few months ago, a biogeochemist and a theologian took a walk in Duke Gardens to talk about climate change. By the end of the walk, the two had created the framework for a new university course that will draw upon expertise from across Duke’s schools to build climate literacy among students and give them the hope and the ability to take action. Organized by biologist Emily Bernhardt, James B. Duke Distinguished Professor of Biology and chair of the department, and Norman Wirzba, Gilbert T. Rowe Distinguished Professor of… read more » about Let's Talk about Climate Change: New University Course will Draw Upon Expertise from Across Duke
As the heavy Russian assault on Ukraine continued to target military and civilian sites alike, about 100 people gathered outside of Duke Chapel Tuesday to hear prayers, poems and reflections from faculty members and campus religious leaders. “We are gathered on this ground here to tell the people of Ukraine that you are not alone,” said the Rev. Kathryn Lester-Bacon, director of religious life at Duke Chapel. “We call attention to those who have suffered so much.” Representatives of the… read more » about Community Gathers at Vigil for the People of Ukraine
When you read a play from the early 1600s, are you reading a literary artifact or a blueprint for a live production? Is the dialogue better understood by analyzing the text or acting it out? What’s more important: the tropes of the era or the architecture of the theater it was first performed in? The answer to all of those questions is both, and a collaboration between the departments of Theater Studies and Romance Studies will show why when a new production of Pedro Calderón de la Barca’s famous play “Life Is a Dream”… read more » about How 2 Departments Brought a 17th Century Play to Life in 2022
DURHAM, N.C. -- Invading armies need a steady supply of fuel and armaments. That’s just as true when the invaders are cells, such as when tumor cells break away from their neighbors and spread to other parts of the body in a process called metastasis -- the most deadly part of cancer. Now, a Duke University-led study in the tiny worm C. elegans provides new insight into how invading cells amass and deploy fuel to the front lines of invasion to power their cellular break-through machinery. In a study in the… read more » about Getting Fuel to an Invading Cell’s Front Line
Name: Emily Ozdowski Position: Instructor in the Duke Department of Biology Years at Duke: 15 What she does at Duke: In high school in Ringgold, Virginia, Emily Ozdowski read an article about the genetics of schizophrenia in a Virginia Tech magazine and knew right away that she wanted to become a researcher. That curiosity eventually landed her at Duke as a postdoctoral researcher in 2006. Today, as an instructor in the Department of Biology,… read more » about Blue Devil of the Week: A Curious Researcher and Dedicated Teacher
Raucous drag shows, dazzling Broadway performances, a smorgasbord of food: Duke in New York: Arts, Culture and Performance isn’t just a study away program, it’s a feast for the senses. Falling in love with the city is a familiar American story, and New York didn’t hold back on the charm for these program alumni. “My favorite part of the city overall is how creatively rich it is with opportunities (especially in fashion) at every corner,” said Sydney Reede, a sophomore who participated last semester. Hoping to work in… read more » about Experiencing New York's Arts Culture for Credit
Ingrid Daubechies celebrates Pi day not by baking pie, but baking cookies cut out using a Pi symbol cookie cutter she designed herself and had specially 3D printed. Daubechies, the James B. Duke Distinguished Professor of Mathematics and Electrical and Computer Engineering, was the first woman to recieve the National Academy of Sciences Award in Mathematics. She played a critical role in the math behind JPEG 2000 image compression. Much of her love of math was inspired by… read more » about Professor of Mathematics Ingrid Daubechies Bakes Cookies for Pi Day
Filling out March Madness brackets is a national pastime -- and almost impossible to perfect. “The odds of picking the perfect 63-game bracket completely randomly is 1 in about 10 quintillion, or about 1 in 10 billion billion,” said Ezra Miller, a professor of mathematics and statistical science. “But using only superficial data about how the tournament has gone in the past, an informed fan can pick a bracket that has roughly 1 chance in 2 billion of being perfect.” An estimated 40 million people fill out… read more » about Mathematics Professor Breaks Down the Statistics Behind Bracketology
Spring Break conjures up images of trips to the beach, but in 2016 Provost Sally Kornbluth had a different idea of how students could get away from the stress of the regular school year. She wanted students to have a chance to explore a subject intellectually without the pressure of grades or credits. Spring Breakthrough gives students a chance to use their week off to learn from a professor and with students outside of their major path. They engage with a course in ways that stimulate curiosity while… read more » about Spring Breakthrough Gives Students an Opportunity to Stretch Their Academic Interests
After decades of advocacy and a unanimous vote from the Arts & Sciences Council in February, Duke undergraduates have a new option to consider when registering for fall 2022 classes: a minor in Asian American & Diaspora Studies. The Asian American & Diaspora Studies Program (AADS) has partnered with the Department of Asian & Middle Eastern Studies (AMES) to offer the thematic minor, which will be housed in AMES and administered by AADS. “AMES really was the natural choice,” said AADS Director Esther Kim… read more » about After Student Activism, Duke Launches Asian American & Diaspora Studies Minor
DURHAM, N.C. -- Finding love in a small isolated place can be tough when everyone is a familiar face, or when half the dating pool is already out because they’re all close relatives. That’s no less true for the wild baboons of Amboseli, who live in close-knit groups of 20 to 150 at the foot of Mount Kilimanjaro in Kenya. A new Duke University-led study takes an in-depth look at the various ways these monkeys keep their family and romantic lives from getting too intertwined. Drawing on 48 years of data on the family trees… read more » about How Baboons Keep Healthy Family Boundaries
Despite its overwhelming superiority in numbers, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has thus far not unfolded as President Vladimir Putin would have expected, Professor Simon Miles said Tuesday. “This has not been an impressive showing for the Russian military,” said Miles, an assistant professor at the Sanford School of Public Policy who wrote a book about the end of the Cold War. Miles was one of several professors from who offered their perspectives on the war in Ukraine before an online and in-person Duke audience… read more » about Does the Russian Invasion of Ukraine Herald a New Era of Global Competition?
Fifty years separate the days when Claudius “C.B.” Claiborne and Michelle Staggers completed their undergraduate degrees at Duke. But a conversation held February 28 made clear that the former student-athletes had plenty of shared experiences, along with a few key differences. Now a professor of business and marketing in the Jesse H. Jones School of Business at Texas Southern University, Claiborne was the first African American basketball player at Duke and earned a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering. Staggers was a member of… read more » about Two Former Student-Athletes Discuss Duke History and Hope for the Future
STEAM student Claudia Chapman (B.S. Computer Science and Electrical and Computer Engineering, minor Dance ’22) is focusing on the software side of computer engineering. Although her passion for technology can be traced back to her kindergarten days, her specific love for coding developed during high school, when she took advantage of every computer science course offered. read more » about The Arts Advantage: Dance is the Balancing Force that Challenges this Software Engineer
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine appointed Duke Professor Charmaine Royal as co-chair of a newly formed committee addressing challenging issues surrounding the use of “race” and other population labels in human genetics research. Royal is the Robert O. Keohane Professor of African & African American Studies, Biology, Global Health, and Family Medicine & Community Health. She also serves as director of Duke’s Center on Genomics, Race, Identity, Difference and the Duke Center for Truth,… read more » about Royal Named Co-Chair of National Academies Panel on Race and Genetics Research
It was an incredibly busy and fruitful four years for Madison Canfora (B.S. Neuroscience, minors musical theater and Chemistry ’21), who had already completed her pre-med track prior to graduating in December.Through her mentorship with Dr. Monica Lemmon at the School of Medicine’s Department of Pediatrics, Canfora researched physician-patient communication in the neonatal intensive care unit and created an original codebook for brain imaging that screened data for relevant descriptions of brain imaging to… read more » about The Arts Advantage: Nurturing the Human Experience Through Theater Studies
DURHAM, N.C. -- On one of the first mild days in February, Duke’s Emily Bernhardt and her stream ecology team donned their hip waders and ventured out to the sycamore-lined banks of New Hope Creek. Duke ecologist and biogeochemist Emily Bernhardt checks levels of dissolved oxygen in the waters of New Hope Creek. Photo by Véronique Koch, Duke University The creek snakes its way through parts of Chapel Hill and Durham before emptying into Jordan… read more » about Tracking the Pulse of Our Nation’s Rivers, Like a Fitbit for Streams