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Until recently, undergraduate research was generally left for a student's senior year, because that's when he or she was immersed deeply in the major field. But current thinking at Duke recognizes the value of beginning research in a student's first year and continuing it throughout the entire Duke experience... and beyond.
The Undergraduate Research Support Office identifies grants and assistantships for undergraduate research projects and institutions that offer summer research programs. On campus, Duke's Howard Hughes Undergraduate Programs at the Institute for Genome Sciences and Policy, offer a summer Research Fellows Program for first-year students, as well as a Hughes Summer Scholars Program for sophomores and juniors. The URS office also holds symposia on undergraduate research and continues to find ways to increase undergraduate participation in research.
The Pratt Engineering Undergraduate Research Fellows Program provides engineering students with the opportunity to conduct intensive research with faculty members as they receive course credit and gain valuable experience through paid summer internships. Pratt Fellows are selected midway through their junior years based on their research interests, academic record, intellectual ability, and maturity. They devote an entire summer and one-fourth of the last three semesters of their undergraduate education to the program.
Duke Summer Research Opportunities is a unique 10-week training program designed to give under-represented minority undergraduates hands-on experience in graduate-level biomedical research. Participants receive a stipend and take part in a weekly research seminar.
Service Learning takes students beyond typical community service. As they develop a project in which research is an integral part of their service, they are able to explore how that work fits into the organization's overall goals.
In addition, Duke's many science laboratories provide a setting for undergraduate research. These include the Duke University Marine Laboratory, the Duke Forest; the Lemur Center; Triangle Universities Nuclear Laboratory; the Free Electron Laser Laboratory; the Levine Science Research Center; the Fitzpatrick Center for Interdisciplinary Engineering, Medicine, and Applied Sciences; and the Medical School's Brain Imaging and Analysis Center.
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Jacqueline Ou ’06, a mathematics and biology major from Lexington, Massachusetts, has conducted bioinformatics research at the Cold Spring Harbor Biological Laboratory and at Duke in the molecular genetics lab of Professor Fred Dietrich. She's also a member of the women's a cappella group Out of the Blue.
Tyler Green ’07, from Huntsville, Alabama, is comparing the World Camp for Kids and Malawian public school HIV/AIDS awareness curricula to identify effective learning strategies for improvement of the national Malawian HIV/AIDS education initiative. His advisor is biology Professor Sherryl Broverman, winner of the David and Janet Vaughn Brooks Award, given for teaching excellence in the sciences and math.
Corina Apostol ’09, from Constanta, Romania, made quite an impression on her art and art history professor during a Focus Program seminar. In fact, Professor Kristine Stiles invited Corina to undertake an independent study examining the role of the image as a witness to trauma—specifically, that of the Holocaust. Corina analyzed two films that deal with the Holocaust from the perspective of the victim’s dialogue with the outside world to see how a traumatic event intended to silence and destroy its witnesses can be presented truthfully to the outside world.
Growing up in Santurce, Puerto Rico, Eddy Leal ’07 understood many of the issues related to educational equality in the public school system. With the hope of contributing to educational improvements in Puerto Rican schools, Eddy worked with Professor Thomas Nechyba, a specialist in public economics, to review common themes across U.S. and Puerto Rican education as well as those unique to Puerto Rican schools. He then spent three weeks during the summer analyzing case studies, collecting data, and conducting interviews in Puerto Rico as part of his research in educational reform.
Martha Brucato ’09, from Sterling, Virginia, knew from the outset that she wanted to conduct research. During her first year at Duke, she sent her resume to several faculty members and landed a position in the lab of anesthesiology Assistant Professor James Reynolds studying the “Efficacy of Study of Ethyl Nitrite in an Ovine Model of Pulmonary Hypertension.” The lab is conducting clinical trials to test whether ethyl nitrite gas helps mediate the effects of severe oxygen deficiency in sheep.
Joe Fore ’07, of Winter Park, Florida, applied his Howard Hughes Summer Scholarship to research “The Effects of Intellectual Property on the Development and Dissemination of the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR).” As part of a Center for Public Genomics project to evaluate the effects of intellectual property considerations on technological innovation, Joe compiled a history of the PCR technology and the role that patents, licensing, business decisions, and legal matters played in its development and dissemination.
Jonathan Russell ’08, from Iowa City, Iowa, is studying the mechanism of action and synthesis of antimicrobial peptides in simple animal systems. The biology and chemistry double major has been selected to receive a Goldwater Scholarship for 2006-07 in honor of his work. His research advisor: molecular genetics and microbiology Professor Alejandro Aballay.
Aleksandra Chmielewski ’06, from Weaverville, North Carolina, conducted interviews with the villagers of Jisha in Yunnan, China to determine the likely effect of cultural tourism on people in this ethnically Tibetan village. Working with the Center for Biodiversity and Indigenous Knowledge, Aleksandra used a translator to speak with the villagers and offered English tutoring in return. Her research advisor: Anne Allison, professor and chair of cultural anthropology.
Tara Mandalaywala ’08, from Hilliard, Ohio, has been working in the lab of Dr. Huntington F. Willard, director of the Institute for Genome Sciences and Policy. She is using lemur comparative genomics to understand X-inactivation, the phenomenon in which one X chromosome is randomly inactivated in an embryonic cell. Tara has been working with mapping in two species of lemurs: the black lemur and ringtail lemur. Because lemurs lie at the base of the primate tree, this data ultimately will help shed light on the mechanisms that regulate aspects of X-inactivation.
Rahul Satija ‘06, a Rhodes Scholar now studying bioinformatics at Oxford University in England, conducted research at Duke in genomics and bioinformatics under the guidance of biology Professor Greg Wray. Rahul, who also won a Goldwater Scholarship in honor of his scientific contributions, researched the sea urchin genome and the smallpox virus.
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