Category: Academics
Duke Hosts Seminar on Teaching Civil Discourse
John Rose’s passion for bridging the hardened political divide will expand from his Duke classroom to educators from across the country this August, when Duke hosts a four-day faculty seminar on teaching civil discourse.
Rose serves as associate director of Kenan’s Civil Discourse Project, which sponsors lectures and courses that promote civil discourse, intellectual diversity, and open discussion of pressing ethical and political questions.
The Aug. 9-12 seminar, supported by a two-year grant from The Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, aims to prepare early career professors to teach a course based on Rose’s class, “How to Think in an Age of Political Polarization.” That Duke course offers tools to promote open discourse and civil disagreement about controversial social and political issues.
Rose says his class doesn’t tell his students what to think but rather how to think. “I like to joke that I could have titled the class ‘Disagree Better,’” he says. (Read Rose’s op-ed about his teaching experience in The Wall Street Journal.)
Jed Atkins, the director of the Civil Discourse Project, has high hopes for the seminar and his project more generally.
“Political polarization is making conversation harder in the college classroom, as seen in high levels of reported self-censorship among students and in conversations with faculty about their teaching,” Atkins says. “We believe Duke can be the nation’s leader in responding to these challenges.”
Teresa Bejan, professor of political theory at the University of Oxford, will lead the seminar along with Rose. Bejan, a native of Durham, is the author of “Mere Civility: Disagreement and the Limits of Toleration” (2017). Her recent TED talk, “Is Civility a Sham?” has garnered nearly 2 million views. Northwestern humanities professor Gary Saul Morson will offer a keynote address.
Twenty-two faculty, chosen from a large of pool of applicants, will participant in the seminar, representing a diverse collection of schools, including Skidmore College, Brigham Young University, Pepperdine, UNC, the University of South Carolina and Kansas State University.
“The response to the call for applications,” says Rose, “confirmed for us that faculty everywhere are grappling with the challenges of discussing hot-button topics in today’s college classroom. It doesn’t matter your institutional context — we’re all feeling it.”
For more information about the seminar, contact John Rose at john.rose@duke.edu.
Supreme Court Ruling Limits EPA’s Authority to Restrict Greenhouse Gases from Energy Production
The U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling June 30 that limits the authority of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate greenhouse gas emissions released by power plants that drive climate change.
Brian Murray, interim director of the Duke University Energy Initiative and Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions, reviewed the ruling and explained its impacts.
WHAT CASE WAS THIS RULING BASED ON AND WHAT DID IT SAY?
MURRAY: The 6-3 opinion on the case West Virginia v. EPA, went against the EPA and in favor of plaintiffs representing the interests of fossil fuel-fired power plants, with the majority opinion delivered by Chief Justice John Roberts. Justices Elena Kagan, Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor opposed the ruling. The ruling says the Clean Air Act, which has been around 50 years, does not grant the EPA broad authority to place caps on power plants’ carbon emissions, which are a major driver of climate change.
DOES THIS MEAN THE EPA CAN NO LONGER REGULATE CARBON EMISSIONS COMING FROM POWER PLANTS?
MURRAY: The ruling limits – but does not eliminate – the EPA’s authority to reduce greenhouse gases. The decision allows the EPA to continue to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act, an authority that was confirmed by the Supreme Court in a 2007 decision, Massachusetts v. EPA. However, it substantially constrains the tools the EPA can use to limit those emissions.
WHAT CHANGES FOR THE EPA?
MURRAY: Before this ruling, the Obama Administration empowered the EPA to reduce power plant carbon emissions through a holistic or system-wide approach to reducing greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Power Plan. The plan, which was revoked by the Trump Administration, allowed plants to use so-called “outside-the-fence” measures, such as shifting some operations from coal to natural gas and renewable energy sources, or offsetting carbon emissions at one plant by reducing them at another to meet overall compliance standards.
With this new ruling, the Supreme Court implies these measures comprised too significant an intervention in the U.S. economy to be justified under the authority of the EPA alone, without specific guidance from Congress. It suggests the EPA only has the authority to limit emissions from “inside the fence line” – in other words, the EPA may only place requirements on emissions generated at individual power plants by placing requirements on the specific technology being used at a plant, but not through broader requirements that reduce the emissions of an entire system of power plants.
CAN THE GOVERNMENT OR BIDEN ADMINISTRATION DO ANYTHING TO RESTORE SOME OF THE EPA’S AUTHORITY?
MURRAY: Moving forward, the EPA does have the authority to regulate carbon dioxide from power plants directly. One can reasonably assume the Biden Administration will exercise this authority, and indeed they have announced their intention to do so. But the tools the EPA is left with may not be powerful or swift enough to substantially reduce carbon emissions to meet the Biden Administration’s 2030 greenhouse gas emissions goals. That said, the EPA could explore the possibility of requiring coal and gas production to use carbon capture and storage processes when generating electricity, and that could have a substantial effect on emissions.
There are also many other federal actions that can be taken to reduce emissions, such as revising fuel efficiency standards, appliance standards and tax credits to reduce emissions. State policies are also in place, as are corporate commitments to emissions reductions. So forward momentum can continue, especially as renewable and other zero-carbon sources of generation become cheaper. But the path could be slower, messier and look more like a zig-zagged line instead of a predictable, smooth, and accelerated trajectory.
Visit the Nicholas Institute for more information on its climate policy work.
How Group Identities Fuel Inequality
Video of stratification economics final3
How we relate to social groups, members of our own and others, influences how inequality arises and persists. That’s according to a Duke professor and pioneer in stratification economics, which combines sociology, social psychology, history, and economics to deepen understanding of persistent racial and ethnic disparities.
"For the stratification economist, the world consists of self-seeking 'tribes' engaged in a persistent dance of negotiation and conflict, which can lead to dehumanization and repression of subordinated communities,” said William A. "Sandy" Darity Jr., a professor of public policy, African and African American studies, and economics at Duke, who launched the subfield in 2005.
"Stratification economics integrates the emphasis on the importance of group position and status from sociology and psychology with the drive for action motivated primarily out of material self-interest from economics," Darity said. “The field of history provides the explanation for the origin and evolution of social groups and group identity.”
Darity’s latest paper outlining the theory is available online in the Journal of Economic Literature and in the journal's summer print issue. A related video summarizing the principles and framework of stratification economics is also available here.
"There is a collective rationality to race prejudice," Darity wrote in the paper, "given a dominant social group's desire to maintain and harden their position of dominance."
Stratification economics expands upon and diverges from traditional economic theory in a few important ways. Most notably, incorporating research into human happiness and the social tendency to avoid last place, it finds individuals are concerned not just with their absolute position in society but also with the relative position of their group, as well as their status within their group.
This understanding presents a coherent explanation for why hierarchical systems endure, along with the prejudices that help maintain them. The higher status group wants to maintain its position of power, and it will fight to "render the [lower] group non-rivalrous,” Darity wrote.
Stratification economics research already has offered explanations for a range of social problems, including the "disproportionately fatal responses of authorities" to needs of Black communities following natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina</a>; the colorism experienced by darker-complexioned individuals in both labor and social markets; and the failure of school desegregation to generate, uniformly, more positive outcomes for Black students.
The paper also highlights six phenomena ripe for analysis via the stratification economics framework. These range from decisions that may have personal or local effects — including the act of "passing" as a member of another group — to decisions on a grander scale, such as politicians and leaders enacting policies to narrow or widen disparities between groups.
The common thread is a recognition of the complex interplay between the individual, the group with which the individual identifies, and that group's position relative to others.
"Stratification economics opens the door to a fresh approach to understanding why the social groups in the world in which we live occupy such different worlds themselves," Darity wrote in the paper's conclusion.
"I confess that I have been surprised in discovering how many scholars have gone into the research space behind the door,” he wrote. “I only can encourage more to follow."
Click here to download a PDF of the full research report.
Don’t Expect Gas, Food or Housing Prices to Drop Soon, Experts Say
DURHAM, N.C. — With gas prices and interest rates continuing to rise, the country appears headed toward a recession, three Duke economists said Wednesday. Still, high prices will eventually recede and the local housing market should remain largely healthy because demand continues to exceed supply.
The three Duke experts talked about gas prices, inflation, interest rates, the housing market and other important issues in a virtual briefing for journalists. Watch the briefing on YouTube.
Here are excerpts:
ON WHETHER INTEREST RATES WILL KEEP RISING
Connel Fullenkamp, professor of the practice, economics
“We’ll see interest rates continue to increase. They’ve been increasing really throughout the spring. What the (Federal Reserve) wants to see is solid evidence that inflation is slowing down and the economy is cooling off. I’m afraid the Fed is going to have to wait a lot longer and continue to raise interest rates before they see that.”
“I really see this as the summer of the last hurrah in terms of consumption because we still have a lot of families who have leftover money from the pandemic fiscal stimulus packages and a lot of people have pent up consumption demand. They want to take that summer vacation, they know the prices are increasing. So you put all those things together and people are going to say, ‘Let me go out and spend this extra money before prices go up too much.’”
“So I think the Fed is going to have to wait a bit longer to see significant evidence of the economy cooling off from its actions.”
ON RISING HOUSE PRICES IN NORTH CAROLINA
David Berger, associate professor, economics
“Interest rates have gone up substantially. I suspect the housing market will cool somewhat, relative to what it’s been like in the last two or three years. But for the Triangle specifically, I would be quite surprised – it definitely will cool at the top end of the market – but I would be quite surprised. It’s going to be more of a modest cooling. It’s important to remember we have sort of record low housing inventories, still in the Triangle.”
“Many people are still moving here. Supposedly 15 households a day to Wake County, five households a day to Durham County. I would expect to see fewer bidding wars, probably, and some price decreases. But I would be surprised if prices fell substantially here given the underlying demand factors.”
“But for sure the fact that mortgage rates have gone up – average payments are at least 30 percent more expensive than they were a year ago – that is quite substantial.”
ON INCREASES IN GAS PRICES AND OTHER GOODS
Emma Rasiel, professor of the practice, economics
“We certainly are expecting that gas prices will continue to stay high. That’s the most noticeable price increase for most of us. We fill the same size tank every week so we know fairly precisely how much that has gone up by.”
“Food is the other big issue in terms of pricing. We’ve seen meat prices in particular go up a lot. Fruit and vegetable prices have not gone up as much for various reasons, but I think over the course of this year we may see those fruit and vegetables going up in prices as well because there are constraints on access to fertilizers, which is really affecting the production cycles.”
ON THE IMPACT OF A GAS TAX HOLIDAY
Emma Rasiel
“If there is a gas tax holiday over the summer, which has been suggested … what we have to keep in mind is it’s then up to the gas suppliers to decide how much of that to pass on to consumers. It’s the providers of gas (who) are the ones who get that break. Maybe that will pass 8 to 10 cents on to consumers. Overall, I think it’s a fairly small impact. Maybe a $1, or $1.50 less in the cost of filling your tank.”
“I don’t think it will make a huge difference, honestly. I think it’s more of a PR exercise than anything else.”
ON WHETHER INFLATION WILL HELP PUSH GAS PRICES HIGHER
Connel Fullenkamp
“Inflation is going to carry the prices higher. People are really dependent on their cars. It takes a very long time for people to adjust their lifestyles. You really can’t just pick up and move.”
“The real story behind gas prices is refining capacity. Gas prices have gone up a lot more than we’ve seen when oil prices have gone up by this much before. During the pandemic, a lot of refinery capacity was shut down and those refineries are so old that the companies that own them don’t want to restart them. They’re either too inefficient or too unsafe to restart. We’re seeing a lot of gas increase prices because of a lack of refining capacity. A new refinery takes a long time to build. It’s very expensive to build. It’s not clear we’re going to add any refining capacity in the short term in the U.S.”
ON WHETHER THE ELECTRIC VEHICLE MARKET WILL SURGE
Connel Fullenkamp
“There’s a lot of aspiration out there to move to electric vehicles. But they’re such a small part of the market. It’s only in the single-digit percents in the U.S. We’re stuck with, just like everything else in the supply chain, limited capacity to expand production.”
“So even if all the people who wanted to purchased electric automobiles and had the money to, we really have limited capacity to expand production of electric vehicles at this point.”
ON WHETHER HOUSING PRICES WILL DROP
David Berger
“All housing markets are local. It’s going to depend on the housing market. The right precursor is to look back to housing markets in the early ’80s where we had a large increase in interest rates under the Reagan administration. There we saw house prices fall.”
“I do think it’s not unreasonable to expect prices to fall 5, 10 percent in many markets around the United States.”
“I expect the higher end of the market to go up. It’s much more expensive to buy a million-dollar house than it was before.”
“I could see housing prices moderating. My expectation for here is that they moderate. Last year, housing prices in Durham and Raleigh went up 30 percent at least. That’s not going to happen again. I’d think much closer would be below 10 percent, 5 percent, something like that. But if rates keep going up, the Fed’s going to keep raising rates until they get inflation under control. So as rates go up, house prices could fall a little bit.”
“There’s very little housing inventory available in the Triangle. That suggests there’s just not a lot of supply. So even if demand cuts back a little bit, there’s still room for house prices to go up.”
ON WHETHER SOME PRICES ON STAPLE GOODS WILL DECREASE
Emma Rasiel
“It is by no means unheard of to see prices actually fall – not just stop going up but actually come back down again. There are times when we see this across the whole economy at large though it varies tremendously sector by sector.”
“We can all think about the cyclicality of gas prices because we’re all very sensitive to it. Back in 2008 gas prices were at $4; five or six years later it was down to less than $2 a gallon; now it’s back up again. Same applies to food. Those markets where the price is most volatile are also the markets where we actually see prices fall under the right set of circumstances.”
ON WHEN SPENDING DROPS OFF
Connel Fullenkamp
“Who has extra money and how are they going to use it? By the end of the summer, most of the families who have extra money and are willing to spend it, who didn’t just sock it into savings, for example, are going to have to spend that. And that could potentially help start cooling the economy down. One of the realities of using monetary policy to fight inflation is that it just takes a long time. Monetary policy works for the banking system; you have to wait for people to stop borrowing. So it just takes a while. We have to get through this overhang of extra money laying around from the pandemic.”
ON WHETHER NEW ECONOMIC POLICIES ARE NEEDED
Emma Rasiel
“I would actually swing that question the other way around and say, ‘How sensible is it for a number of different policies to be experimented with?’ and whether the best thing to do is go with the monetary policy that has been used for decades that takes time but will work over time — whether it’s better to just focus on that and not keep trying other things.”
“Particularly, something like the tax holiday on gas. Those are short-term effects that may affect consumers less than the government intends. They may end up just being beneficial for the gas companies.”
“What we need to see … that money that has been swimming around in the economy because of all the fiscal stimulus, we need to get that largely spent so that the economy can sort of settle down and go back into a pattern we understand better.”
ON WHETHER PEOPLE WILL BE UPSIDE DOWN ON HOME LOANS AGAIN
David Berger
“We learned that we needed to have better underwriting standards. The good news is underwriting standards are much improved. It’s much more difficult to get a loan if you’re more risky or more likely to default than in the past. So in that sense I’m pretty sanguine; we’re not going to see a lot of foreclosures.”
“A lot of households have a lot of cushion. Because house prices have gone up so much recently, households have a lot of cushion. They’re much more able to weather these moderate price-falls that might happen. I’m not particularly concerned about foreclosures.”
ON CONSUMER FRUSTRATION WITH HIGH COSTS
Connel Fullenkamp
“If I’m a retailer, one sure way to make my customers unhappy is to do a lot of frequent price increases. So what retailers in many cases are trying to do, they’re trying to moderate the number of price increases. They try to increases once and then come back to it in a few months rather than doing it this week and then next week. So if you’re in that kind of a situation where you’re trying to pass on some costs but also trying to hold the line on the number or prices increases, you’re in a real guessing game. You’re trying to guess how high you can raise the price right now and then stick to that price for a while.”
Faculty Participants
David Berger
David Berger is an associate professor in the Department of Economics at Duke. His research interests include housing, labor and finance.
Connel Fullenkamp
Connel Fullenkamp is a professor of the practice and director of undergraduate studies in the Department of Economics at Duke. He studies financial market development and regulation of financial markets.
Emma Rasiel
Emma Rasiel is associate chair and a professor in the Department of Economics at Duke. She is also teaching director of the Duke Financial Economics Center. Rasiel teaches courses on financial markets and energy finance.
Duke Scholars: Jan. 6 Hearings Essential For American Democracy
The House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol begins its public meetings Thursday night. Nancy MacLean, a Duke professor of history and public policy, said she has never been so concerned for the nation’s future.
“These hearings are the most important in our lifetimes,” MacLean said. “Why? Because they will help determine whether our country will continue the tradition of the peaceful transfer of power after elections that reaches all the way back to George Washington. The global scholarship on failed democracies teaches us that the best predictor of a successful coup is a failed coup without accountability for the organizers.”
MacLean said the threat uncovered by the House investigation is not over.
“The efforts at election sabotage continue,” she said, “with the spread of disinformation, attempts at the state level to alter the way future elections are conducted and counted – and even, at the grassroots, so many threats to election officials of both parties that many who have served with integrity for years, even decades, are leaving the field.”
“Too many Americans imagine that our country is immune to authoritarianism. That assumption is making us vulnerable to a threat like none we have ever experienced,” MacLean said. “We faced an attack on our country that has brought us to a constitutional crisis. The sooner millions of Americans realize it, the better are our chances of curing the cancer.”
David Schanzer, a professor of the practice at Sanford, said the hearings can demonstrate the authoritarian nature of the movement behind the attack.
“The hearings should emphasize how virtually everything we hold dear — our physical safety, our liberty, and our economic prosperity — depends on having a society based on free and fair elections and the rule of law,” Schanzer said. “Trump and his cronies attempted to subvert the rule of law and use violence to reverse an election that he lost. To preserve our democracy, these actors, and the politicians that continue to support the big lie that the 2020 election was unfair, need to be held accountable — either through the criminal justice system or the ballot box.”
Asher Hildebrand, an associate professor of the practice at the Sanford School of Public Policy, pointed out that authorities have already prosecuted hundreds of individuals who participated in the attacks.
“The question before the committee is whether former President Trump, his top lieutenants, and his allies in Congress committed federal crimes in their plot to overturn the election,” Hildebrand said. “If the hearings reveal that President Trump or his aides knew he had lost the election but sought to overturn it anyway, that they communicated or coordinated with the right-wing militias that participated in the attacks, or that they intentionally sought to interfere with the counting of electoral votes, this will provide compelling evidence of criminal conduct.”
The public narrative matters at least as much as the facts of the case, Hildebrand said.
“President Trump and his allies, supported by Fox News and other right-wing media, are trying to persuade the public that a violent insurrection in support of overturning the results of a free and fair election didn’t happen — or if it happened, that it was an acceptable form of protest,” Hildebrand said. “Much depends on the committee’s ability to counter this narrative — and on the mainstream media’s willingness to report the truth instead of resorting to false equivalencies.”
Nancy MacLean
Nancy MacLean is a professor of history and public policy at Duke University and the author of several books, including Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America.
David Schanzer
David Schanzer is a professor of the practice at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy and an expert on counterterrorism and homeland security. He was Democratic staff director for the House of Representatives Committee on Homeland Security from 2003-2005.
Asher Hildebrand
Asher Hildebrand is an associate professor of the practice at the Sanford School of Public Policy. Hildebrand served for nearly 15 years in congressional offices and on political campaigns. He was formerly chief of staff to U.S. Representative David Price (D-NC).
Duke Names First Senior Associate Dean Of International Students
Duke’s 3,000-plus international students have a new advocate, signaling the university’s commitment to the experience of students from across the world.
Kevin D’Arco, who joined Duke in fall 2021, became Duke’s first senior associate dean of international students in March.
“Duke international students have sought a leader in student affairs who would wake up every day thinking about their needs and ways to make the student experience more welcoming to international students,” said Mary Pat McMahon, vice president and vice provost of student affairs. “Kevin brings the organizational change experience, advocacy and leadership acumen to do just this, and we're thrilled to have him in this key role."
D’Arco is part of the Student Affairs Student Engagement leadership team and oversees I-House while building collaborative relationships with Duke Kunshan University and Duke’s Office of Global Affairs. He will be a key advisor and resource to Duke’s international students.
Before joining Duke, D’Arco worked for 11 years abroad with international students from more than 50 countries as the assistant dean of students at the University of Utah Asia Campus in South Korea and as a director at Carnegie Mellon University's campus in Qatar. At those institutions, D’Arco supported student growth through his work in first-year programming, new student orientation, leadership development, student organizations, student exchange programs, and student conduct.
D'Arco joined Duke in fall 2021 as director of student involvement. He has been advising Duke Student Government and the Student Organization Finance Committee, as well as supporting a team responsible for student organization programming, Duke University Union, Duke Groups and the Arts Annex.
Shruti Desai, associate vice president of student engagement, said D’Arco demonstrated a knack for building relationships during the interview process.
“His humility and willingness to hear opportunities and concern from students also made him our top candidate,” Desai said.
A graduate of The Ohio State University and Texas A&M University, D’Arco completed his doctorate in Organizational Change and Leadership at the University of Southern California in 2019.
D’Arco moved to Durham from South Korea with his wife Katie and two sons, the youngest born at Duke University Hospital. Katie will join Durham Public Schools as a teacher this fall.
Eve Duffy, associate vice provost for global affairs, chaired the search committee, which also included Ling Jin, Karen Weber, Joshua Salaam, Edgar Virguez and Suomo Ammah. Candidates also met with groups of students as part of the interview process.
“It became instantly clear in the interview process that D’Arco is passionate about students,” Duffy said. “He puts them and their needs at the center of his work and his approach. His unique experience making a home for international students at campuses abroad translates well into the Duke culture.”
Experts: Data From Satellites Critical in Helping Ukraine
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s violent thuggery across Ukraine has bolstered the value of data from satellite-based imagers to drive diplomatic strategies and deliver aid to Ukrainian citizens.
That’s according to experts who spoke Friday during a webinar sponsored by the Space Diplomacy Lab, part of the Duke University Center for International and Global Studies (DUCIGS) Rethinking Diplomacy Program.
The technology, combined with satellite-based internet platforms, has also helped diplomats and aid workers devise humanitarian evacuation corridors and aid officials in assessing the state of infrastructure across Ukraine, they said.
Lessons learned from the technology will provide insights on how best to gather and use such data in future conflicts, they said.
“The gathering force of these technologies means that, over time, we will pretty much be able to detect, attribute and classify much of what is going on on the planet surfaces in terms of human activities,” said guest speaker Saadia Pekkanen, a professor of international studies and law at the University of Washington.
“This includes all civilian, commercial, military, public and private events and operations, anything that can be counted and seen from space will be counted and recorded, sold and disseminated.”
Pekkanen added that if the technology is expected to improve and get faster “to address security challenges virtually anywhere on the planet surfaces — Ukraine proves it.”
The use of “small satellites and big data” means nations are under the microscope like never before, and “all their behaviors — the good and the bad — will be visible,” she added. “Anonymity is under unprecedented assault and it may soon be gone forever."
“What goes for the civilian side also goes for the military side, and I cannot stress this enough,” Pekkanen said. “Satellite imagery is in essence non-discriminatory — it sees a civilian school bus the same way it sees a military tank.”
Concerns raised during the talk included the availability of this information to enemies and how to help less-affluent countries obtain the technology.
“Small satellites are now capable of rather sophisticated remote sensing and are inexpensive enough to manufacture to launch and operate, thanks to rapid growth in the commercial satellite and launch sectors,” she said.
Benjamin L. Schmitt, a research fellow at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and Rethinking Diplomacy fellow, noted concerns about the rise in space debris.
Pekkanen said there’s already an estimated 5,000 satellites in space.
“The astronomers are all up in arms, because the number is projected to go up to 100,000,” she said. “And we're already tracking about 40,000 pieces of debris, to the extent that our census can capture everything. So yes, we are looking at in extremely crowded, contested and congested orbital debris space.”
But, she added: “We need to balance the good with the bad in this sense.”
This event, part of the Space Diplomacy Webinar Series, was hosted by Schmitt and Giovanni Zanalda, director of DUCIGS. Both co-chair the DUCIGS/RDP Space Diplomacy Lab. The DUCIGS/RDP program is funded with a grant from the Josiah Charles Trent Memorial Foundation Endowment Fund.
Watch the full webinar: https://youtu.be/lywa-A8xS8c
Twenty-Four Duke Students, Alumni Named Fulbright Recipients
DURHAM, N.C. — Twenty-four Duke students and alumni have been named Fulbright recipients to teach English, pursue graduate study and conduct research abroad during the 2022-2023 academic year.
The Fulbright U.S. Student Program is the U.S. government’s flagship international educational exchange program, offering opportunities in over 140 countries. The Fulbright award is designed to facilitate cultural exchange and increase mutual understanding between people of the United States and those of other countries.
“We are proud to support applicants to the Fulbright program, which has long been a model of inclusivity and diversity,” said Gwen Volmar, the director of Nationally Competitive Scholarships at Duke. “The application process is as rewarding as it is rigorous and we applaud all our students who applied. We look forward to the good work they will do as a result.”
The Fulbright Scholarship application process is open to Duke seniors, alumni and graduate and professional students.
Here is the list of 2022-2023 Fulbright Award recipients from Duke, their host countries, and projects:
- Amanda Andriessen, Germany, Fulbright Study/Research Grant—Investigating Neuro-immune Interactions in Cancer Pain to Develop Novel Analgesics
- Sara Baudhuin, Greenland, English Teaching Assistantship
- Alexa Burnston, India, Fulbright Study/Research Grant—Carnatic Music Performance Studies in Chennai
- Allan Chen, Mexico, English Teaching Assistantship
- Austin Connors, Paraguay, Fulbright Study/Research Grant—Paraguayan Policy and Perspectives amid the Annex C Renegotiation
- Sydney Gaviser, Spain, English Teaching Assistantship
- Maria Gieg, Spain, English Teaching Assistantship
- Tayzhaun Glover, France, Fulbright Study/Research Grant—Freedom on the Horizon: Slave Flight and the French Abolition of Slavery, 1824-1848
- Anjali Gupta, Nigeria, Fulbright Study/Research Grant—Characterizing Multiple Dimensions of Healthcare Access Among Breast Cancer Patients
- Rishabh Jain, India, Fulbright Study/Research Grant—Artificial Intelligence and Intraocular Pressure Measurement for Glaucoma Screening
- Obadiah Issachar Kirk, Honduras, Fulbright Study/Research Grant—Molecular Characterization of Cryptosporidium Species in HIV Patients and Children under Five
- Rachael Lau, Nepal, Fulbright Study/Research Grant—Mitigating Disaster: Technology for Geophysical Risk and Resiliency in Nepal
- Younis Mahmoud, Italy, English Teaching Assistantship
- Catherine McMillan, South Korea, English Teaching Assistantship
- Julia Murphy, Taiwan, English Teaching Assistantship
- Shae Nicolaisen, Colombia, English Teaching Assistantship
- Elizabeth Nist, Germany, Fulbright Study/Research Grant—Human Evolution and Reconstructing Habitual Behavior
- Georgia Price, South Korea, English Teaching Assistantship
- Kristen Rigsby, Spain, English Teaching Assistantship
- Aditya Santoki, India, Fulbright Study/Research Grant—Barriers to Cost of Care Discussions for Indian Cancer Patients
- Anna Truong, Australia, Fulbright Study/Research Grant—Uncovering Mechanisms of Drug Resistance in the Malaria Parasite
- Cynthia Wang, Germany, Fulbright Study/Research Grant—Monitoring Chemical tRNA Modification in Ocean Microbiomes as a Marker for Climate Change
- Emil Zakarian, Bulgaria, English Teaching Assistantship
- Stephen Zaksewicz, Austria, Fulbright Study/Research Grant—The Ends of the World: Planetarity in Contemporary Austrian Prose
Fulbright awards are announced on a rolling basis, determined by the host country. This list is current as of May 17.
Those considering applying should contact an adviser with Nationally Competitive Scholarships. The Duke campus deadline for the Fulbright U.S Student Program for the 2023-2024 academic year is Aug. 22, 2022. For more information about the Fulbright U.S. Student Program, visit https://us.fulbrightonline.org
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Duke’s Andrew Liu Awarded Udall Scholarship
DURHAM, N.C. — Duke University student Andrew Liu has received the Udall Scholarship, which recognizes students who have demonstrated a commitment to careers in the environment, Native health care, or tribal public policy.
Liu, a rising senior from Missouri City, Texas, was chosen to receive the scholarship based on his work with environmental issues. Liu is one of 55 scholars chosen nationwide.
Liu is a mechanical engineering and computer science double major who is passionate about advocating for and developing clean forms of energy. He is a Pratt Fellow, an undergraduate student researcher with Bass Connections and a Huang Fellow. Liu was also recently named a Nakayama Public Service Scholar.
He has served as an undergraduate teaching assistant in the computer science department and is the president of internal operations for Duke Conservation Tech. Liu also is involved in STEM Connect, which strives to inspire students from Durham in learning STEM and DUKE ASL, where members learn sign language as well as about the deaf community.
Liu plans to pursue a Ph.D. in materials science with a focus on developing clean energy systems.
A 20-member independent review committee selected this year's group of Udall Scholars on the basis of their commitment to careers in the environment, Native health care or tribal public policy; leadership potential; record of public service; and academic achievement. The review committee also awarded 55 honorable mentions, which included Duke rising seniors Ariella Chukwuma, Gianni Lacey-Howard and Robert Phillips.
Duke students and alumni can receive support for opportunities like the Udall Scholarship from the Nationally Competitive Scholarships team at the Office of University Scholars and Fellows. For more information on the Udall Scholarship, visit www.udall.gov.