Behavioral Sciences
Illustration of Titi Shodiya and Zakaiya Whatley who host the Dope Labs podcast

Meet the Duke Ph.D.s on a mission to make science more accessible

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When Titi Shodiya and Zakiya Whatley launched the science podcast Dope Labs, they started not by talking about science, but instead by telling the story of their friendship.

“Zakiya and I met in grad school,” Shodiya Ph.D. ’15, a materials scientist and engineer, told listeners. “It was a tough time, to say the least. And in our pursuit to get the hell out of there, we became cousins. You know how Black folks do. She’s my play cousin.”

Making a scientific miracle count in the real world

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At first, scheduling for COVID-19 vaccinations was tough, but even a month or so into it, chances are you waltzed through an organized, uncrowded, series of rooms in a hospital or medical center or drug store. It’s little short of a miracle. Half the population in the U.S. has had at least one dose of the vaccine, and though slowing, the numbers of the vaccinated continue to rise.

Study explores anger, violence, and masculinity

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ADAM STANALAND’s study was designed to threaten the masculinity of its participants. Predictably, some of them got angry.

Of those, and even after a debriefing reiterating that there is no right or wrong way to be a man, a few issued threats or used violent language in their post-study comments. Yet some comments were poignant and sad.

“We got feedback that was like, ‘Oh, this confirms what my parents always thought about me,’ or, ‘This confirms what I think of myself,’ ” Stanaland says.

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