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While pursuing her degree in electrical and computer engineering at Duke, Cassidee Kido participated on three Bass Connections teams that helped fuel her passion for energy and the environment. Now a project manager at Energy Solutions, she reflects on the ways her project teams honed her skills and inspired her current work.

In 2013, the first Bass Connections research teams embarked on ambitious projects to tackle real-world challenges ranging from gender inequality in STEM education to children’s mental health to climate policy in the U.S. to rural poverty. Since then, the program has supported nearly 500 interdisciplinary teams and brought together more than 4,000 faculty, students and staff to conduct cutting-edge research spanning dozens of disciplinary fields and world regions.

A 2022-2023 Bass Connections team is digging into the richness of dirt and fungi to inform the development of a unique art project called “Soil and Spirit.”

While stepping into a new era with the Duke Climate Commitment, Duke also looks back on a long state history of environmental justice advocacy and the injustices that necessitate it.

The 2021-2022 school year marked a series of welcome returns for the 1,200 students, faculty, staff and community partners who participated in Bass Connections. Our 61 year-long project teams resumed their in-person work on campus, many teams participated in their first fieldwork since 2019 and we were once again able gather together in Penn Pavilion to celebrate the year through our annual Fortin Foundation Bass Connections Showcase.

This summer, the DLC-SAVA Conservation project at the Duke Lemur Center is leading a Bass Connections project on bicultural sustainability in Madagascar.

Among the 2022 Ph.D. graduates are numerous students who took advantage of the Bass Connections program to strengthen their dissertation research, coauthor publications and hone career-enhancing skills. Many students also engaged in other interdisciplinary opportunities across campus.

Check out these doctoral student pathways.

These 10 seniors are among the nearly 600 Duke undergraduates who participate in Bass Connections each year. For some students, taking part in collaborative, interdisciplinary research confirmed and deepened their interests; for others, the experience opened up entirely new paths. Many students found ways to take their research further through honors theses and other opportunities.

Kyle Bradbury and Jordan Malof, co-leaders of the Creating Artificial Worlds with AI to Improve Energy Access Data team, are the joint winners of the 2022 Bass Connections Leadership Award.

Aislinn McLaughlin (Master of Environmental Management) is the winner of the 2022 Bass Connections Award for Outstanding Mentorship. This annual award recognizes the crucial leadership and mentorship roles that graduate students and postdocs play on Bass Connections teams.

For these five alumni, Bass Connections was a vital part of their journey to careers in health and medicine.

These three students joined Bass Connections teams that took on challenges facing our planet, from climate change to plastic pollution to habitat loss.

The Duke University Energy Initiative has unveiled its newest cohort of Energy Data Analytics Ph.D.

What happens when environmental news (i.e: wildfires and hurricanes) takes a backseat to the President Election and COVID-19?

The Duke University Energy Initiative has appointed Dr. Eric Rohlfing as an executive in residence.

Rohlfing--spouse of Dr. Celeste Rohlfing (T'79) and parent of Meg (T'09) and Anne (T'12 & M'16)--will join Duke this fall after a distinguished career at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), where his roles included directing the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E).

The Graduate School has announced the recipients of its 2019 Dean's Awards recognizing outstanding efforts in mentoring, teaching, and creating an inclusive environment for graduate education at Duke. The recipients will be honored at a ceremony on Wednesday, March 27. | Details

YAY! Registration now OPEN for Duke U Energy Conf & Alumni Breakfast!

TIME TO SAVE YOUR SEAT FOR THIS NOV. 7 EVENT! 

Guinness World Records has now confirmed that a team of Duke University undergraduates have designed and built the most fuel-efficient vehicle prototype in history: a hydrogen fuel cell car that gets the equivalent of 14,573 miles per gallon. Duke Electric Vehicles (DEV’s) record-breaking run took place on Saturday, July 21 at Galot Motorsports in Benson, North Carolina.

This week the 

Brian Murray, director of the Duke University Energy Initiative and a faculty member at the Nicholas School of the Environment, co-edited a special section in the latest issue of Energy Economics. The section focuses on the key findings of Energy Modeling Forum Model Inter-comparison P

In March 2018, the Duke University Energy Initiative sent a team of 11 undergraduate and graduate students to Los Angeles to install solar panels in low-income neighborhoods. Organized by the nonprofit Grid Alternatives, Solar Spring Break places student teams in communities across the country, where they help homeowners save money and send more clean energy to the electric grid.