Computer Science

A Year of Creativity and Bold Thinking Through Bass Connections

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.

Senior Spotlight: Reflections from the Class of 2022

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.

Here are excerpts of what this experience has meant to them.

Squash, Gardener and the Future of AI in Political Fact-checking

Professors Jun Yang (computer science) and Bill Adair (journalism and public policy) will discuss their work in automated fact-checking on Tuesday, October 20th at 4:30 p.m..

For the past five years, Jun and Bill have worked together in a variety of Bass Connections, NSF and foundation-supported projects that have broken new ground in instant fact-checking of political speeches and debates. They’ll discuss their progress and the challenges they’ve had. Recent related news linked below.

Work in progress

Writer: 

AS A MAJOR in both computer science and visual arts, I had been eager to design a project that merged these two fields through the use of machine learning. I quickly gravitated toward doing a black-and-white relief print and then experimenting using other mediums in combination. I decided to use colored screen prints layered underneath the relief prints and high-resolution scans processed by generative machine-learning algorithms to create new versions to display alongside the original print.

Alumni Profile: Amit Bagga

Amit Bagga discusses his career journey from Duke Comp Sci PhD student to Vice President of AI & Discovery at Comcast in this Duke Graduate School interview. Among other benefits of a Duke education, he enjoyed the diversity, flexibility and freedom to explore programs and specialties before deciding on a topic for his PhD.

Pages