Graduate

2022 Summer Discovery Program

We were excited to host 18 students on campus and 70+ students on Zoom last week for our Summer Discovery Program- thank you to all of our mentors for part

Work in progress: Think of it as a kind of fitbit for whales

Writer: 

Before becoming a student again in 2011, I worked for PopCap Games. We made Bejeweled and Plants vs. Zombies, and I was COO for a while and ran worldwide game studios. When I turned forty, I decided to leave and do something different with my life.

My heart had always been in science.

I lived in Seattle, where there’s an endangered population of Southern Resident killer whales. I kept thinking this would be an interesting career to have, to try and help with the conservation and recovery of populations like those.

Duke marine-mammal biologists use dolphins to explain stubborn blubber

Writer: 

How much energy does a dolphin burn in a day?

Not only what’s the caloric cost, but can a dolphin afford to forever be dodging boats? That’s so much effort. And how many burned calories keep a mammal warm in cold seawater? How much lost biomass—that’s sea life in this context— is too much before a dolphin can’t get enough to eat?

How do you even measure that, anyway?

You go where you know there are dolphins, and you ask them nicely.

The Peruvian Navy rushed sick Madre de Dios villages to regional hospitals at the request of Duke researchers

Duke researchers make an impact in the jungles of Peru

Writer: 

The flight from Lima to Cusco takes an hour and twenty minutes, and the road from Cusco into the highlands climbs to nearly 20,000 feet. From there it descends, unpaved and passing along cliffs and through cloud forest and eventually into jungle over the course of ten, twelve hours. At the bottom is a little town, and from there one travels by river, because there are no more roads.

Afghanistan landscape

Reckoning with America's longest war

Writer: 

FOR THE UNITED STATES, the war in Afghanistan was the most protracted war in history—longer than World War I, World War II, and Vietnam combined. Shortly after the seemingly chaotic withdrawal of U.S. forces in mid-August, the magazine convened a conversation among three individuals with very different perspectives on—and experiences with—the U.S. in Afghanistan.

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

Writer: 

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.”

Study explores anger, violence, and masculinity

Writer: 

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.

Volunteer with the Sanford School

Sanford alumni serve in a variety of ways. You are invited to volunteer in critical roles that will contribute to the growth, leadership and future of our program and the world. Check out the variety of opportunities available here: https://sanford.duke.edu/connect/alumni-friends/volunteer

I realized...the solace of books

Writer: 

On October 3, 2009, more than 300 Taliban fighters overran Combat Outpost Keating, the outpost held by my reconnaissance troop of seventy-six cavalry scouts. During the eighteen-hour battle, the Taliban killed eight soldiers, wounded nineteen more, and burned our base to the ground. Describing my unit’s mission, President Obama asserted we had to “defend the indefensible.” This was the longest day of my life, but it only prefaced a struggle that has lasted for years.

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