Something hits a gigantic underground tank, flashes dimly for a few seconds and you have 15 minutes to figure out where it came from. The catch? It could have come from anywhere in the universe. We’re talking about neutrinos, the lesser-known cousin of protons and electrons, and how scientists can use them to detect a supernova, the spectacularly explosive (and very rare) death of a star. Thanks to a newly funded National Science Foundation Institute, Kate Scholberg, Arts & Sciences Distinguished Professor of Physics… read more » about Physics Professor Joins $15 million NSF Institute to Develop Accelerated AI-Driven Algorithms
Editor's Note: October 19, 2021 Since this article was first published on May 26, 2021, Glymph received two additional awards for The Women's Fight, both from the American Historical Association: the Albert J. Beveridge Award, given annually to "a distinguished book in English on the history of the United States, Latin America or Canada," and the Joan Kelly Memorial Prize, awarded annually to "the book in women’s history and/or feminist theory that best reflects the high… read more » about Six Awards Confirm the Impact of Thavolia Glymph’s Research
Whether preventing explosions on electrical grids, spotting patterns among past crimes, or optimizing resources in the care of critically ill patients, Duke University computer scientist Cynthia Rudin wants artificial intelligence (AI) to show its work. Especially when it’s making decisions that deeply affect people’s lives.While many scholars in the developing field of machine learning were focused on improving algorithms, Rudin instead wanted to use AI’s power to help society. She chose to pursue opportunities to apply… read more » about Duke Computer Scientist Wins $1 Million Artificial Intelligence Prize, A ‘New Nobel’
The Trinity College of Arts & Sciences has announced the winners of the 2021 awards for undergraduate teaching. Given each year, the awards honor exceptionally strong educators from across the college. Teaching award recipients are selected by the Arts & Sciences Council on the basis of student evaluations, teaching statements and colleague recommendations. “These four awards are bestowed by the Arts & Sciences faculty in recognition of especially outstanding teaching,” said Arts & Sciences Council Chair… read more » about Arts & Sciences Teaching Awards Celebrate Excellence Across the College
Michael Tomasello, the James F. Bonk Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience, has been awarded the David E. Rumelhart Prize, one of the most important prizes in cognitive psychology. The Cognitive Science Society award honors a team or individual who makes a “significant contemporary contribution to the theoretical foundations of human cognition.” Established in 2001, it includes a monetary award of $100,000 and is funded by the Robert J. Glushko and Pamela Samuelson Foundation. Tomasello, who received his… read more » about Michael Tomasello Awarded Cognitive Science Prize
Iman Marvian, assistant professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Physics at Duke University, has been awarded a prestigious National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award. The award supports outstanding young faculty members in their efforts to build a successful research enterprise For the next five years, the $510,000 award will support Marvian’s efforts in Quantum Information Science to use insights gained from developing models for quantum computing algorithms and quantum… read more » about Marvian Wins National Science Foundation CAREER Award
Record high temperatures, water shortages, prolonged droughts, soil salinification. Things aren’t exactly looking up for fruit and produce growers. Lucia Strader, an associate professor in Biology, has just been awarded a $3.36 million grant from the National Sciences Foundation (NSF) to try to help. Along with Drs. Ross Sozzani, from North Carolina State University, and Max Staller, from the University of California, Berkeley, Strader is proposing a new method that would allow scientists to improve plants’ resistance to… read more » about Biology Professor Lucia Strader Awarded $3.4 Million to Revolutionize Transgenic Plants
A Duke physicist is among those to receive an Early Career Research Program Award this year from the U.S. Department of Energy, the government agency announced May 27. Assistant Professor of Physics Dan Scolnic studies cosmology and is particularly focused on new image analysis techniques and finding optical counterparts to gravitational waves. The research topic he submitting for the DOE award was titled “Reducing Top Systematic Uncertainties in Cosmological Analyses with Type Ia Supernovae and Contaminated Photometric… read more » about Scolnic Earns DOE Early Career Research Program Award
Africanism and the Arab World. Capitalism and the Constitution. The items in each pair aren’t always considered together, but two Duke faculty members argue that doing so clarifies important facets of our world, and both will use National Humanities Center fellowships to make their case. Mbaye Lo, associate professor of the practice of Asian & Middle Eastern Studies and International Comparative Studies, and Nancy MacLean, William H. Chafe Distinguished Professor of History and Public Policy, are among the National… read more » about Duke Professors Earn Fellowships to Study Overlooked Connections
What can a hydroelectric dam teach us about inequality, injustice, poverty and the environment? Quite a lot, it turns out, when the dam in question it sits on the border between one of the smaller countries in South America, Paraguay, and the global giant that is Brazil. Christine Folch, an assistant professor in Cultural Anthropology, has been studying the politics of the Itaipu Dam for the past 10 years, leading to the publication of her first book on the subject in 2019. Since arriving at Duke, she has engaged students… read more » about Cultural anthropologist awarded Carnegie Fellowship for her work in Latin America
Two Duke faculty members have been elected as members of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS), one of the highest honors in the profession. Joseph Heitman, MD, PhD, the James B. Duke Professor and Chair of theDepartment of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology in the Duke University School of Medicine, and Rachel Kranton, PhD, the James B. Duke Distinguished Professor of Economics and Dean of Social Sciences in the Trinity College of Arts & Sciences, join 37 other Duke faculty members previously elected to… read more » about Two Duke Faculty Elected to National Academy of Sciences
Four senior faculty members, including Medical School Dean Mary Klotman, have been named Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS). The recipients — all women — represent four of 252 total members elected this year. Founded in 1780, the Academy honors exceptional scholars, leaders, artists, and innovators and engages them in sharing knowledge and addressing challenges facing the world. “We are honoring the excellence of these individuals, celebrating what they have achieved so far, and imagining what… read more » about Dean and Three Senior Faculty Elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Henry Newson Professor of Physics Haiyan Gao has been named the next Associate Laboratory Director for Nuclear and Particle Physics at Brookhaven National Laboratory, according to a March 30 announcement from the research center. Brookhaven is home to one of the world’s largest existing particle accelerators, the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, and also hosts the brightest x-ray synchrotron in the world. Research conducted at Brookhaven has had impacts in fields ranging from physics and materials to biology and medicine… read more » about Duke Physicist to Again Lead Premier National Lab
You can blame the Boy Scouts for Dr. William Morris’ career. That wouldn’t be such an unusual origin story for an ecologist. What is unusual are the lengths to which Morris takes his passion for the great outdoors. Studying nature wasn’t enough: he wanted to study nature in extreme environments. Morris’ research focuses on understanding how plants and the insects that eat and pollinate them respond to climate change. His work takes him to some of the most severe environments on Earth, including the 10,000-foot peaks of… read more » about Professor Bill Morris Named a Fellow of the Ecological Society of America
When Sara Galletti first walked into the town hall in Arles, France, she was stunned. “It’s a relatively large room, and it’s covered by an absurdly shaped vault,” the associate professor of Art, Art History & Visual Studies said. “It’s several types of vaults interpenetrating each other, and it holds up this heavy stone ceiling with no pillar at the center.” The mix of sober, bare stone and intricate, delicate lines fascinated her. It’s a style of vaulting called stereotomy, and Galletti’s fascination only grew as she… read more » about This Difficult Method of Building Vaults Has Lasted for Millennia. But Why?
One is a chemist attempting to prevent malaria infections. The other is a mathematician working to understand one of the most mysterious problems in her discipline. Both were named 2021 Sloan Research Fellows. Emily Derbyshire, assistant professor of Chemistry and Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, and Jessica Fintzen, assistant professor of Mathematics, were among the 126 recipients of this year’s Sloan awards, which recognize early-career scholars “of distinguished performance and a unique potential to make substantial… read more » about Meet Trinity's 2021 Sloan Fellows
ArtReview named Felwine Sarr, a research professor in the Department of Romance Studies, as the third most influential person in the contemporary art world in 2020, alongside his collaborator Bénédicte Savoy. The magazine said: No single government-commissioned report in recent decades has had such a dramatic impact on cultural debates as that written by economist Sarr and art historian Savoy for French president Emmanuel Macron in 2018. By proposing the unconditional restitution of any object in national… read more » about Felwine Sarr Third Most Influential in Art World
We use our mouths to tell stories, but we rarely ask what stories our teeth can tell. Teeth can reveal our age, what we eat, where we come from and may even give hints about how stressed we are. Can they do the same for our extinct hominid ancestors? They just might, with help from a Gordon P. Getty Grant from the Leakey Foundation to a multi-institutional team led by Dr. Richard Kay, Duke professor of Evolutionary Anthropology. This prestigious award honors scientists whose research advances multidisciplinary science… read more » about What Can Fossil Teeth Tell Us About Our Ancestors?
Stephen Hayes, instructor of Art, Art History & Visual Studies, won the Gibbes Museum of Arts's 1858 Prize for Contemporary Southern Art. Awarded each year by the museum in Charleson, South Carolina, the prize "recognizes the highest level of artistic achievement in any media" by artists from the U.S. South. “Thank you to the Gibbes Museum and Society 1858 for the honor of receiving the 1858 Prize for Contemporary Southern Art,” said Hayes. "I initially began creating as a way to impress my mom and brother and now I… read more » about Stephen Hayes Wins 1858 Prize for Contemporary Southern Art
Six members of the Duke faculty have been named have been named Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Election as a AAAS Fellow is an honor bestowed upon AAAS members by their peers. They are among 489 new fellows elected this year. The tradition of AAAS Fellows began in 1874. A virtual induction ceremony for the new fellows in the organization’s 24 sections will be held on Feb. 13, 2021. Engineering L. Catherine Brinson, Sharon C.… read more » about Six from Duke Named Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Sarah Gaither, PhD, Assistant Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience has received the prestigious 2020 Sage Young Scholar Award. The Sage Young Scholar Awards recognize outstanding achievements by young scholars who are early in their research careers. The awards are intended to provide these scholars with funds that can be flexibly applied in extending their work in new and exciting directions. Previous recipients of this award have gone on to positions of intellectual… read more » about Sarah Gaither Receives 2020 SAGE Young Scholar Award