Last spring, the Sanford School of Public Policy developed a new strategic vision intended to spark political engagement, broaden students’ experiences, and boost the school’s influence across the country and around the globe.

Nearly 4,200 members of the more than forty species of prosimians—lemurs, lorises, bush babies, and tarsiers—have lived at the Duke Lemur Center since 1966, and the center has been recording data on them.

A Duke researcher has developed a 3D imaging technique for peering into the layering of a painting. Warren Warren, a chemist and biomedical engineer at Duke, develops laser systems to image human tissues. But he thought his work might be useful for art historians as well.

Having HIV testing close to one’s home makes in more likely that one will get tested. At the same time, HIV preferences vary greatly across individuals, according to new research conducted by Duke Global Health Institute faculty members. The findings could help inform how HIV-testing services are adapted and expanded across sub-Saharan Africa.

The old saying goes, “Yawns are contagious,” but have you considered the biology behind it? While previous studies have suggested a connection between contagious yawning and empathy, new research from the Duke Center for Human Genome Variation finds that contagious yawning may decrease with age and is not strongly related to variables like empathy, tiredness, and energy levels.

The study of the human body was intimately connected with art during the Renaissance era. From this visual culture emerged fugitive sheets, three-dimensional illustrations of human internal organs. Although widely disseminated from the 1530s until the late seventeenth century, fugitive sheets were typically printed as a single broad sheet rather than as part of a bound volume, explaining why so few exist today (hence the “fugitive” designation).

More than 2,000 students have participated in DukeEngage since it began in 2007. The program, in which students serve a domestic or international community in need, has become a Duke hallmark. So, it might surprise you to know that forty years before DukeEngage launched, Duke had developed an immersive community- service program based in Durham.

Kara Medoff Barnett ’00 began taking ballet classes at the age of three and entertained the idea of becoming a professional dancer before she was sidelined with an injury in high school. By the time she arrived at Duke, she had switched her sights from arts to medicine, taking pre-med courses and volunteering with the student-run Emergency Medical Services group.

Read more about these alumni who recently returned to give back to Duke students through mentoring, lectures, and words of wisdom.

Serve Where You Are

In the spring of 1961, Ida Stephens Owens graduated summa cum laude from North Carolina College—now North Carolina Central University— with a major in biology. Just a few months earlier, Duke University’s board of trustees voted to integrate its graduate and professional schools. Owens came to the attention of Daniel C. Tosteson, then chair of the physiology department, who was recruiting accomplished students from black colleges to pursue advanced degrees in the sciences.