Aisha Mane '26: Making the Most of Eight Semesters and Three Summers

For Aisha Mane, the path to commencement didn’t begin with certainty. Instead, it began with a visit. 

She readily admits she applied to “a ton of colleges,” but it wasn’t until Blue Devil Days that Duke clicked. Sitting in on classes, watching professors engage directly with students and feeling a warm sense of community, she knew she had found her place.    

“Blue Devil Days was that secret sauce,” she confesses. “I remember committing to Duke from my hotel room the next day.”  

Once on campus, her sense of direction sharpened thanks to a FOCUS cluster, The American Experiences. Taught at the time by Lee D. Baker, now vice provost for the Office of Undergraduate Education, Baker would become a formative presence in how she came to understand her time at Duke.  

“I FLUNCHed him during my first semester and asked what advice he would give to a first-year student,” Mane explains.   

His answer was incisive: students have only eight semesters and three summers at Duke, so make them count. For Mane, that finite window became her catalyst. She pursued Program II, Trinity’s self-designed major, centering her course of studies around one guiding question: what systems shape health outcomes in Black communities? 

For Mane, that question is deeply personal. Watching her father navigate pancreatic cancer revealed gaps and inequities in the healthcare system that have stayed with her. The murder of George Floyd, just 25 minutes from her Minnesota home, further underscored how systemic forces shape both justice and health.  

Through Program II, Mane has examined these issues from multiple perspectives: historical, political and biological. Courses like Trauma Across the Lifespan and Gene-Environment Interaction deepened her understanding of how lived experiences shape long-term health. Along the way, she discovered a personal strength: navigating complexity and connecting disparate ideas into a clearer whole. 

She readily admits that her Duke experience would not have been the same without Program II. “It’s helped me see how different systems can be combined, and I realized that I thrive in spaces where I can think critically, put the pieces together and understand what’s happening beneath the surface. 

“I like solving puzzles — and this is a big one.” 

"I realized that I thrive in spaces where I can think critically, put the pieces together and understand what’s happening beneath the surface."

That mindset has carried into her senior thesis: “Examining Cross-Cultural Lived and Physiological Sickle Cell Experiences (ECLIPSE).” Mane investigates how social, structural and biological factors intersect to shape patient outcomes in the U.S. and Jamaica. Her research combines quantitative and qualitative methods, including validated survey measures and photovoice, where participants document daily life through images and captions. 

“As a researcher, this has helped me better understand the structural and social barriers patients face,” she explains. “I’m currently coding interview transcripts, and it’s been one of the greatest honors of my life to have participants share so much of themselves with me.”  

Her work has earned her the Annenberg Fellows for Interdisciplinary Learning and Engagement, and she is now program coordinator for the grant — one of several ways she extends her impact beyond the classroom, including leadership roles in the Minority Association of Pre-Medical Students and the Program II Majors’ Union.   

Looking back, Mane struggles to name just one defining memory. There’s Orientation Week in Project Wellness, where she met friends who became her core support system, so close they’re now planning matching graduation photos and class rings engraved with Duke’s coordinates.  

She can’t forget sophomore year that took her to Morocco and Egypt with Duke in the Arab World or junior year centered on creating a community for antepartum patients through a Bass Connections project that taught her that sometimes the most meaningful form of healthcare is simply listening.   

And in true Duke fashion, she tented in K-Ville, scored a virtual halftime layup in Cameron and walked away with Meta glasses — moments as memorable as any classroom lesson. 

Her long-term goal is to attend medical school and become a family medicine physician. But first, she’s staying close to campus. 

“I’m getting my Master of Public Health at the other blue school down the road,” she says. She’ll focus on health equity and social justice, supported by the Hatch-Barnhill Endowed Scholarship. “It’s allowing me to continue my research without worrying about the financial aspect of grad school. It’s been such a big blessing.” 

And after clearly making the most of her eight semesters and three summers, her advice to Duke student is simple: if it makes you happy, it’s not a waste of time.  

She admits the second piece is a “little bit cheesy,” but fitting.  

“My friends and I watch old Disney television shows, and one of our favorites is “Jessie.” The theme song ends with, ‘It feels like a party every day,’ and honestly, that’s what Duke has felt like. There won’t be another time, at least in the foreseeable future, where I'll be living in a one-mile radius of all my best friends.” 

So for the next generation of Blue Devils: enjoy it, be present and soak it all up.