Engineering

Alumni Spotlight: Cassidee Kido '17

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.

"Research and collaboration through an interdisciplinary lens are really valuable in the work I do today. I learned to think critically in a research capacity, which helped me become a better problem solver."

Student Story: Sydney Hunt '23

Engineering professors, Sophia Santillan and Rebecca Simmons, have been crucial role models for Sydney Hunt as a Black and Hispanic woman in STEM. From the start of her first year, she spent time during office hours and lunches having conversations with them about diversity and retention in STEM fields.

Exploring the Impact of Collaborative, Interdisciplinary Research Through Bass Connections

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 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.

Inspired by a bad break, former Duke football players create a company

Writer: 

People often warn, “Don’t start a company with your friends.” But Kevin Gehsmann B.S.E. ’19, Clark Bulleit B.S.E. ’19, now a first-year medical student at Duke, and Tim Skapek B.S.E. ’20, all former Duke football players and Pratt School of Engineering alumni, didn’t listen to that advice.

Leveraging their Duke experience, the trio founded PROTECT3D, a company that makes custom protective splints, pads, and braces for athletes using 3D printing.

Mathematicians come together to create a mixed-media sculpture

Writer: 

As the summer of 2021 lengthened and autumn began to approach, the website for “Mathemalchemy”—the unique, hallucinatory, room-sized mathematical mixed-media sculpture under construction by mathematicians from all over the world—showed a countdown to its unveiling. On August 15, 2021, at noon, in Gross Hall on West Campus, students, supporters, and the dozens of mathematicians who created parts of it would join together to unveil it.

Parikh Selected as Inaugural Decaminada Memorial Fellow

DukeEngage independent project participant Naman Parikh ’24 was chosen as the first-ever Chelsea Decaminada Memorial DukeEngage Fellow, which recognizes a passion for international service and doing good in the world. The fellowship was established by the Decaminada family in memory of their daughter, Chelsea ’15, who was part of the 2013 DukeEngage-Kolkata (India) program. After graduating from Duke, she volunteered with the Peace Corps in Tanzania before joining the U.S. Department of Commerce.

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