What’s on summer reading lists for Duke professors? As the campus quiets down and the days stretch longer, faculty are diving into books that inspire, challenge and entertain. Whether it’s exploring new ideas, escaping into gripping stories or coming back to classics with fresh eyes, these picks reveal a lot about what’s sparking curiosity and conversation behind the scenes at Duke. From sharp literary fiction to provocative nonfiction, here’s a glimpse at what some of Duke faculty are reading this summer. Grab your… read more » about Dear Reader: Here’s What Duke Faculty Are Reading This Summer
Mine Çetinkaya-Rundel, professor of the practice and the director of undergraduate studies in Statistical Science, has been appointed director of the First-Year Experience in Trinity College of Arts & Sciences.Çetinkaya-Rundel will play a pivotal role in overseeing the launch of the First-Year Experience, a signature component of the new Arts & Sciences curriculum being implemented in Fall 2025. All incoming first-year students will participate in the experience through either the longstanding FOCUS program or the… read more » about Mine Çetinkaya-Rundel Appointed Director of the First-Year Experience in Trinity College of Arts & Sciences
Edward Triplett is an assistant professor of the practice of Art, Art History & Visual Studies. (Photo courtesy of Triplett) When Edward Triplett first stood among the ruins of a Spanish medieval fortress, he wasn’t just looking at weathered stone. He was looking for a story.And he found one. Using tools such as drone photography and procedural 3D modeling to virtually reconstruct historic fortifications around Spain and Portugal, the assistant professor of the practice of Art, Art… read more » about Castles Crumbling: Using the Digital Humanities to Reimagine Medieval Iberia
Tyson Brown, a professor of sociology and associate professor in medicine, has been appointed director of the Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity at Duke University effective July 1, Provost Alec D. Gallimore announced.Brown succeeds the Cook Center’s founding director, William A. (“Sandy”) Darity Jr., the Samuel DuBois Cook Distinguished Professor of Public Policy and professor of African & African American studies and economics.Established in 2015, the Cook Center is a scholarly collaborative that studies the… read more » about Tyson Brown Named Director of Cook Center
In chimpanzee communities, strong social ties can be a matter of life and death not just for the adults who form them, but for their kids, too.A new federally-funded study of wild eastern chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) from Gombe National Park shows that female chimpanzees who were more socially integrated with other females in the year before giving birth were more likely to raise surviving offspring.The findings, published online on June 18 in iScience, show that these survival… read more » about It Takes a Village: Chimpanzee Babies Do Better When Their Moms Have Social Connections
In 1947, the sweet crack of a bat connecting with a baseball was amplified in ballparks big and small when Jackie Robinson crossed major league baseball’s color line and the national pastime truly became America’s game. June 19 is the date of Juneteenth, an earlier milestone along the arduous journey toward freedom and equality in America.The holiday commemorates the arrival in 1865 of the Union Army in Galveston, Texas, to enforce the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation barring the odious institution of slavery in the… read more » about A Duke Professor’s Play on Jackie Robinson Is a Hit for Clayton’s Juneteenth Celebration
Duke University faculty member Jonathan Mattingly, the Kimberly J. Jenkins Distinguished University Professor of New Technologies in the Department of Mathematics, has been chosen to serve as interim director of the Rhodes Information Initiative at Duke (Rhodes iiD).Mattingly’s work centers on models of phenomena where randomness plays a significant role, such as air turbulence or Monte Carlo algorithms for Bayesian sampling. He has also worked on biological problems related to cellular metabolism, infectious diseases and… read more » about Jonathan Mattingly Named Interim Director of Rhodes Information Initiative at Duke
The richness of Duke’s intellectual communities and its deep commitment to interdisciplinarity are major draws for top scholars who are leaders in their fields. To help recruit these academic stars, Duke leveraged the university-wide institutes, initiatives and centers (UICs) to create the Provost’s School-UIC Joint Hiring Program and to offer starting support from UICs. Donors’ generous gifts helped make these programs possible.Duke was able to recruit more than 40 faculty members through these mechanisms between 2006 and… read more » about Nine Reasons Stellar Interdisciplinary Faculty Choose Duke
Duke’s football stadium scoreboard is accustomed to displaying impressive images. On June 23rd, however, it had the privilege of displaying images unlike any other before: the cosmos, as seen in the first photographs released by the NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory. From the identification of its ideal site on a Chilean mountaintop 8,684 feet above sea level to the fine-tuning of its software, thousands of researchers have played a role in ensuring that the Rubin Observatory’s extraordinarily ambitious goal — to… read more » about When a Picture Is Worth a Billion Worlds: Duke Cosmologists Celebrate the Rubin Observatory’s First Images
Tucked into an old brick building near the Eno River, which once housed a textile manufacturing business, is Quadridox — a company whose founders want to change the future of airline travel, while also making health care diagnostic testing more accurate. Quadridox uses X-rays, but not the way doctors detect broken bones. Those X-rays make pictures by passing straight through objects. Quadridox’s X-ray diffraction imaging, on the other hand, is used to analyze the structure of materials by observing how X-rays bounce… read more » about Hate Airline Security Lines? A New Technology May Ease Your Pain
A Los Alamos collaboration with Duke researchers has replicated an important but largely forgotten physics experiment: the first deuterium-tritium (DT) fusion observation. As described in Physical Review C, the reworking of the previously unheralded experiment confirmed the role of University of Michigan physicist Arthur Ruhlig, whose 1938 experiment and observation of deuterium-tritium fusion likely planted the seed for a physics process that informs national security work and nuclear energy research to… read more » about Duke Physicists Part of Team Recreating Forgotten Experiment Observing Fusion
Duke faculty members Denise Comer, Saskia Cornes, Shai Ginsburg, Candis Watts Smith and Norbert Wilson spent last year serving as fellows in the Atlantic Coast Conference Academic Leaders Network (ACC ALN).“Being part of the ACC ALN was incredibly energizing and inspiring,” said Comer, who is professor of the practice and director of the Thompson Writing Program. “It connected me with a thoughtful community of peers and gave me practical tools and fresh perspectives that continue to shape how I lead and collaborate.”… read more » about A Year of Faculty Leadership Development With the ACC
Duke faculty member Jean-Philippe Gibert is the Joanne W. Markman and A. Morris Williams Jr. Associate Professor of Biology and a Simons Foundation Early Career Fellow in Microbial Ecology and Evolution. He and his lab study how climate change affects living things and the way organisms depend on others to survive and reproduce.We caught up with Gibert to ask a few questions about his research. Below are excerpts from the conversation. read more » about Food Webs, Climate Change and One Equation to Rule Them All
Kerry L. Haynie, Trinity’s dean of Social Sciences and professor of Political Science and African & African American Studies, recently received the Mac Jewell Enduring Contribution Award from the American Political Science Association. Honoring scholarly contributions to U.S. state politics or policy that continue to shape the field more than a decade after publication, the award was presented to Haynie and co-author Kathleen Bratton of Louisiana State University for their influential 1999 Journal of… read more » about Enduring Impact: A Seat at the Table Still Matters
A multidisciplinary team across Duke University is developing a promising new approach to pain management using adenosine, a naturally occurring compound in the human body that can help regulate pain, inflammation and seizure activity. Seok-Yong Lee, PhD, George Barth Geller Distinguished Professor of Molecular Biology and professor of biochemistry; Ru-Rong Ji, PhD, William Maixner Professor of Anesthesiology; and Jiyong Hong, PhD, professor of chemistry, developed a non-opioid pain-relieving compound that inhibits… read more » about A New Painkiller Offers Alternative to Opioids
While artificial intelligence is disrupting industries, and even replacing humans in some areas, we still live in a world where artificial and human intelligence need each other. That’s the message that was driven home at the recent Triangle AI Summit, which brought together academic and industry leaders to delve into what a future with AI will look like.“There’s no turning back. Students are using it. The world is using it,” Jun Yang, Bishop-MacDermott Family Professor of Computer Science at Duke, said. “We have to figure… read more » about Charting a Future With AI
Conducted by Jon Hilsenrath, a former Wall Street Journal economics writer and Visiting Scholar at Duke University, in partnership with Duke’s Department of Economics, the survey gathers views from former Federal Reserve officials and staff about the economic and outlook for the U.S. central bank. Former Federal Reserve officials and staff anticipate higher unemployment and higher inflation in the months ahead, which could complicate decision-making at the U.S. central bank about interest rates, according to… read more » about New Survey of Former Federal Reserve Insiders Points to Restrained Interest Rate Outlook
This year marks a special milestone for Duke's Department of Music as David Heid celebrates his 30th year on faculty. Known for his dynamic presence in the classroom, on stage, and behind the piano, Heid has been an inspiring force in the university’s musical community for three decades. In this in-depth interview, Heid reflects on his journey to Duke, his teaching philosophy, and what keeps him inspired after all these years.A Career in HarmonyQ: What is your current job title?D. Heid:… read more » about Celebrating 30 Years of Music and Mentorship: An Interview with David Heid
Psychology & Neuroscience graduate student Nimesha Gerlus has been awarded the first-ever Data Discovery Award from the Misophonia Research Fund (MRF). Misophonia is a neurobehavioral disorder in which certain everyday sounds, such as chewing, provoke intense emotional and physical reactions, including anger, anxiety or disgust.An M.D.-Ph.D. candidate, Gerlus’s work focuses on how emotional dysregulation is represented in the brain and how treatments aimed at improving emotional regulation affect neural function,… read more » about Nimesha Gerlus Wins Data Discovery Award From the Misophonia Research Fund
Scott Lee (Ph.D. 2018) has been awarded Second Prize in the 2024/2025 Jâca Emerging Composers Competition for “Evasive Maneuvers,” written for clarinet and guitar.Jâca is the award-winning duo of Wesley Ferreira and Jaxon Williams. “I’m honored to be awarded in the competition, but I’m most excited that I’ll get to work with Wesley and Jaxon in a performance of the work,” said Lee. “They’ll be only the second duo to perform it, so I hope this will lead to broader exposure for the piece.”Originally written for Silviu Ciulei… read more » about Scott Lee (Ph.D. 2018) Wins Jâca Emerging Composers Prize for Clarinet and Guitar Piece
Nearly 400 Duke faculty members from all schools have invested time in working with a professional coach in the Office for Faculty Advancement.Coaching is a series of confidential, structured conversations that help people reflect on complex situations, navigate challenges, enhance self-awareness, set goals and exercise accountability for meeting those goals. Maria LaMonaca Wisdom, assistant vice provost for faculty advancement and adjunct associate professor of the practice in the Program in Education, is a professional… read more » about Faculty Perspectives on Coaching
“The Outsiders” and “John Proctor Is the Villain” showcased Danya Taymor’s adept staging of teen stories. Off Broadway, next: the teen satire “Trophy Boys.” read more » about Meet Broadway’s Teen Whisperer, Duke Alumna Dayna Taymor
The Office of the Provost and The Graduate School have selected three proposals to establish new Interdisciplinary Graduate Education Collaboratives (IGECs). Made possible by a generous grant from The Duke Endowment, these IGECs will launch in Fall 2026 and offer graduate students unique opportunities to tackle complex societal challenges alongside peers and faculty from across campus.Through seminars, working groups and projects, students will receive applied training and gain exposure to emerging issues at the… read more » about Equipping Graduate Students to Tackle Emerging Challenges
Professor of Biology Justin Wright has been appointed to a new term as Dean of Graduate Education for Trinity College of Arts & Sciences by Dean Gary Bennett. “Justin has distinguished himself as a transformative leader and mentor whose contributions to graduate education at Duke have been both personal and systemic,” Bennett said in announcing Wright’s reappointment. “Since his initial appointment in 2022, he has combined strategic vision with day-to-day engagement to elevate the culture of mentorship across… read more » about Justin Wright Reappointed Trinity Graduate Dean
Clay Taliaferro, professor of the practice emeritus in the Dance Program, will be honored with the 2025 Balasaraswati/Joy Anne Dewey Beinecke Endowed Chair for Distinguished Teaching award from the American Dance Festival (ADF) on June 29.A celebrated figure in the world of dance, Taliaferro has built a remarkable sixty-year career as a dancer, choreographer and educator. His professional teaching journey began in 1969 at the American Dance Festival, where his collaborations… read more » about Dance Emeritus Clay Taliaferro Honored by American Dance Festival
Marrying into a wealthy family that also comes with a job opportunity sounds pretty great — until a dark secret comes to lightThat's the premise behind Amin Ahmad's mystery A Killer in the Family, PEOPLE can exclusively announce. The book is forthcoming next year from Henry Holt and Company, an imprint of Macmillan Publishers.Muslim bachelor Ali Azeem thinks he’s made it big when he joins an arranged marriage with Maryam Khan, the daughter of one of New York’s wealthiest tycoons. Ali leaves his hometown of… read more » about A Man Uncovers His In-Laws’ Twisted Secrets in Amin Ahmad’s "A Killer in the Family"
Cynthia D. Rudin, the Gilbert, Louis, and Edward Lehrman Distinguished Professor of Computer Science, received the 2025 International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence Organization (IJCAI) McCarthy Award.The award recognizes Rudin’s foundational work on trustworthy artificial intelligence (AI), which is shaping the field of interpretable machine learning and making a major impact on sweeping societal changes. The John McCarthy Award celebrates mid-career researchers who have sparked innovative research… read more » about Cynthia Rudin Receives 2025 International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence McCarthy Award
AI is transforming every industry, from medicine to film to finance. So, why not use it to study one of the world’s most revered ancient texts, the Bible? An international team of researchers, including Shira Faigenbaum-Golovin, assistant research professor of Mathematics at Duke University, combined artificial intelligence, statistical modeling and linguistic analysis to address one of the most enduring questions in biblical studies: the identification of its authors. By analyzing subtle variations in word… read more » about Revealing Hidden Language Patterns in the Bible, With the Help of AI
“Which Constellations interest me the most?” This is the question incoming students are likely asking themselves until June 17, the deadline for submitting preferences for Constellations. Constellations are an integral part of the signature First-Year Experience in the new Arts & Sciences curriculum. Beginning this fall, incoming Trinity undergraduates will kickstart their Duke journey with a cohort-based, interdisciplinary First-Year Experience as part of a Constellations cohort or through the… read more » about “Be Curious, Question, Explore:” Advice for First-Year Students Navigating Constellations
Bradley Simmons, director of the Duke Djembe and Afro-Cuban Ensembles, passed away on May 22, 2025. Since 1998, Simmons taught West African and Afro-Cuban music at Duke, using instructional methods steeped in a rich oral tradition passed down through generations of musicians. “We are deeply saddened,” said Verena Mösenbichler-Bryant, chair of the department of Music. “Bradley’s extraordinary passion, rhythmic brilliance and generous spirit left an indelible mark on generations of students and on our department.… read more » about In Memoriam: Bradley Simmons (November 14, 1951 – May 22, 2025)