“My name is Meg Stalter I’m 5’7 I’m living in LA and a fun fact about me is something bad happened to my cousin.”
As made evident by her Twitter profile, my favorite comedian, Megan (“Meg”) Stalter, knows how to make an introduction. Stalter is best known (as far as I know) for her role in the HBO comedy “Hacks,” in which she plays Kayla (whoever that is).
I do not have a Twitter account and I have never seen the show. While we are talking about me, I will explain that I do not really watch TV, with the one exception of West Wing.
Since we are still talking about me, you should know that I fibbed. There are two exceptions. The other one is Grantchester, a Masterpiece Mystery about a hot priest who solves crime (but that was sort of a given, no?).
I share Stalter’s bio for a few reasons. For starters, it makes me smile, and sharing a smile is a tried-and-true way to score a friend (cha-ching!).
Meg Stalter once again proved her knack for making a first impression at her Emmy’s debut
On top of that, it is a good example of someone who knows how to make a first impression. I expect to have made a great impression by the time I finish this, but to ensure things got started on the right foot, hedging my bets if you will, I thought it best to leave the preamble to someone at the top of the trade.
Stalter’s bio also proves a simple point; it is not merely what you say that counts, but how you say it.
I am something of a sub-par reader. I love to read, it is just not my biggest strength (doesn’t mean it can’t be (growth mindset)! Just facing today’s facts). I don’t think I read enough as a child, so now I am slow and I usually fall asleep.
But I get by. I power through my class readings, I keep a book on my bedside table, and I get my news through the radio (that and two free tickets to the Hoppin’ John’s Fiddler’s Convention–it pays to be tuned into WUNC on Saturday nights at 10. Cha-ching!).
This relationship with reading influences my writing style. When I write, I try to keep my readers awake. Not with what I write — I have full faith in the topic at hand’s capacity to speak for itself — but with the way I write it.
My past experience writing for a published paper was in high school, where I spent four years as co-editor of the “Hustle and Bustle” page. I authored a satirical advice column in which troubled high schoolers (me) could send their personal woes to someone who would publish them for the whole school to read (also me). I like writing as a secondary form of chatting.
My senior year, I retitled my column “Dear Addy,” after the well-known advice column “Dear Abby.”
And so it is with this laudable writing background that I report to you on the groundbreaking discoveries from one of the top research universities in the U.S.
Why write for a research blog? Research is interesting. Research makes the world go round. Just ask a freshman. They all came here for the “research opportunities,” as did all the other freshmen at all the other universities.
Before I sign off, I will let you know where you might catch me in my free time. This is a key element of the standard student bio, and I am prone to severe FOMO, so let me get right to it.
I am a sophomore from Hickory, North Carolina hoping to major in Public Policy and minor in Math. In my free time you might catch me listening to NPR, jogging, potting, singing to myself, making a smoothie, telling people about my smoothie, spamming my contacts for an ice cream date, or for the not-so-lucky, trying my best at Appalachian-style fiddle.
From shot-putting, to helping conduct two research studies, to being selected for a cardiology conference, meet: Kinsie Huggins. She is from Houston, Texas, currently majoring in Biology and minoring in Psychology with a Pre-Med track here at Duke. With such a simple description, one can already see how bright her future is!
“I want to be a pediatrician and work with kids,” Huggins says. “When I was younger, I lived in Kansas, and in my area, there were no black pediatricians. My mother decided to go far to find one and I really bonded with my pediatrician. One day, I made a pact with her in that I would become a pediatrician too so that I can also inspire other little girls like me of my color and other minority groups.”
Having such a passion to let African-American and minority voices be heard, Huggins is also part of the United Black Athletes, using her shot-put platform to make sure these voices are heard in the athletics department.
And while she may be a top-notch sportswoman, she is also just as impressive when it comes to her studies and research. One of her projects focuses on the field of nephrology – the study of kidneys and kidney disease. She and a pediatric nephrologist are currently working on studying rare kidney diseases and the differences in DNA correlating to these diseases.
Kinsie is also a researcher at GRID (Genomics Race Identity Difference), which studies the sickle cell trait in the NCAA. With the sudden deaths of college athletes from periods of over-exhaustion during conditioning, there has been a rise in attention of sickle cell trait and its impact on athletes. At first, the NCAA implemented a policy that made it mandatory for college athletes to get tested for sickle cell in 2010, but some were wary about the lack of scientific validity in such claims. Now, the NCAA has funded GRID to conduct such research.
The difference of Normal red blood cell and sickle cell (CDC).
“We are analyzing the policy (athletes need to be tested for sickle cell), interviewing athletes in check-ups, and looking at data to see if the policy is working out for athletes and their performance/health,” Huggins explains.
With such an impressive profile, it doesn’t go without saying that Huggins didn’t go unnoticed. The American College of Cardiology (ACC) select high school and college students interested in the field of medicine and have them attend a conference in Washington D.C. to hear about research presentations, groundbreaking results of late-breaking clinical trials, and lectures in the field. Having worked hard, Huggins was selected to be part of the Youth Scholars program from the ACC and was invited to the conference on April 2-4.
Let’s wish Kinsie the best of luck at the conference and on her future research!
International students comprise an essential part of the fabric of US colleges.
Their contributions to ongoing campus dialogues, research initiatives, and cross-cultural exchange have improved not only the caliber, but also the relevance of American universities on a global scale. Yet, through a combination of legal challenges and the COVID-19 pandemic, enrollment of international students in the United States declined by 15% from 2020 to 2021.
This figure was a key motivating factor behind one of the panels at The Evolving Role of Universities in the American Innovation System conference, hosted by The Center for Innovation Policy at Duke Law School on March 3 and 4. The panel, titled “Immigration Policy and the Availability and Cultivation of Talent to Support U.S. Universities’ Missions,” explored the importance of effective immigration policy in fostering a culture of innovation in the United States. Featuring four thought leaders on the intersection of immigration policy and international students, the panel was moderated by Stuart Benjamin, JD, from Duke Law School.
Esther Brimmer, DPhil, Executive Director and CEO of NAFSA: Association of International Educators
Panelist Esther Brimmer, DPhil. stressed the importance of generating a coordinated national strategy for attracting international students, with the goal of creating an attractive environment for scientific leadership. Scientific fields are the focus because, while international students make up only 5% of total enrollment at US universities, over half of them are employed in STEM fields. Furthermore, in the 2016-2017 Academic Year, 54% of master’s degrees and 44% of doctorate degrees in STEM fields were issued to international students, two figures that have been on the rise in the past decades.
Recent legislation from the Biden-Harris Administration capitalized on the rising relevance of international STEM students by expanding opportunities for study and bolstering legal protection, a move backed strongly by Brimmer and other immigration policy scholars.
Richard Freeman, PhD, Herbert Ascherman Professor of Economics at Harvard University
Richard Freeman, PhD, followed up Brummer’s points by analyzing the impact of international students on a recent scientific breakthrough: the development of COVID-19 vaccines. Working off of a thesis that the US university serves as a critical global hub for science, technology, and innovation, Freeman focused his analysis on the C-suites, inventors, and clinical trial authors as it pertained to major pharmaceutical firms Moderna, Novavax, Pfizer/BioNTech, Johnson & Johnson, and AstraZeneca/Oxford. Freeman found that US university education was a uniting factor in the backgrounds of most of the leaders and innovators within the vaccine development processes, irrespective of whether they were born in the United States. To propagate the vast US innovation system, Freeman alluded, it was imperative that policymakers develop the necessary frameworks to maintain a pool of international talent.
Caroline Wagner, PhD, Associate Professor at the John Glenn College of Public Affairs at The Ohio State University
Caroline Wagner, PhD, proceeded to expound upon the critical policy frameworks necessary for enhancing international collaboration at US research universities. She discussed how liberal democracies such as the United States ought to shift their policies in terms of focus, funding, and approach towards research in order to keep pace with a more diffuse and fast-growing international STEM ecosystem. Therefore, research at the university level needed to be better aligned with US national interests on an economic and political level, claimed Wagner. Working off of this claim, the focus of Wagner’s current collaborative project with the Berkeley Research Group Institute is to develop and advise a more deliberate science and technology policy that would balance innovation with the needs of global security.
Dany Bahar, PhD, Associate Professor of Practice of International and Public Affairs at Brown University
Dany Bahar, PhD, rounded out the panel with a discussion of the intersection between migration and innovation, with a specific focus on inventions. Through his research, Bahar identified a class of individuals whom he dubbed Global Mobile Inventors, scholars and inventors who patent multiple novel technologies in a multitude of different countries. As these individuals migrate across borders, they utilize their technical expertise to positively contribute to the economies of each country within which they reside. Upon mapping patent data against migration reform trends, Bahar found that negative migration reforms often stop innovative inventors from moving, leading to a loss of innovation and a lowering of economic output.
Chart visualizing the movements of Global Mobile Inventors between twenty nations from 2015 to 2019. Chart and data obtained from Dany Bahar.
Bahar asserted, in no uncertain terms, that America needs migrants now more than ever before. This powerful statement was met with nods of approval from each panelist, an empowering example of consensus-building from leaders working within a decidedly imperfect university system. However, it was the panelists’ common recognition of institutional shortcomings that laid the groundwork for an especially fruitful discussion, one that will likely play out on the national and international political stage for years to come.
Duke has a goal of being a “climate university,” Nicholas School of Environment Dean Toddi Steelman said in introducing a panel discussion on Climate Change Science during Research Week. She said it’s a vision in which the university’s focus on climate informs every aspect of its mission, from education and operations to community partnerships – and, of course, research.
Five Duke climate scientists spoke on the Feb. 1 panel, all remotely. (View the Discussion.)
Jim Clark, professor of statistical science at the Nicholas School, described our planet’s climate as a “moving target” when it comes to understanding its impact on biodiversity. Complex connections exist between species, like a “system of interactions” between each other, that responds to climate change.
Our understanding of this system is limited by population data collection like the Breeding Bird Survey and the USDA Forest Inventory & Analysis — projects that lack “co-located monitoring of multiple species groups,” Clark said. Such measures fail to capture the relationships between species.
Professor James Clark
Instead, Clark advocates moving away from static models like these population measurements and towards the question of “How does change in the whole community respond to the environment and other species?” In order to understand our dynamic climate, we need an equally dynamic conception of biodiversity, he argued.
Marc Jeuland, associate professor of public policy and global health, and leader of the Sustainable Energy Researchers Initiative (SETI), talked about the “deep inequities” in energy access across rural parts of developing regions and the prospect of accomplishing “a just and sustainable energy transition” of their energy sources.
He thinks the transition can be accomplished with existing sustainable energy technologies like wind and solar.
The problem has two main parts, he said. First is the lack of clean cooking energy, with 2.6 billion humans dependent on solid fuels (wood and charcoal) and polluting stoves. The second is the lack of electricity and electrical services, with 760 million people going without and millions more lacking reliable service, he said.
Professor Marc Jeuland
Jeuland said there is an urgent need to reallocate resources to spread climate solution technologies in these parts of the world.
Jeuland and his SETI team tirelessly investigate how to overcome energy poverty and the populations they affect most – primarily in Africa and Southern Asia – to understand the feasibility and tradeoffs with the adoption of increased access to alternative fuels.
Emily Bernhardt, the James B. Duke distinguished professor of biogeochemistry in the Nicholas School and chair of Duke Biology, addressed the question of how climate change and sea level rise will impact coastal communities and ecosystems.
She said we don’t really have to wait to see what will happen: predominantly low-income communities along the coast are already suffering the consequences of sea water and extreme weather events. But she said the regions’ struggles remain unsolved and underrepresented because they lack the economic and political power to affect change.
Professor Emily Bernhardt
Whenever an event like a hurricane occurs, coastal plain communities are susceptible to storm surges that introduce salt into freshwater environment – leading to sometimes catastrophic, often long-lasting impacts on existing ecosystems, Bernhardt said.
Betsy Albright, associate professor of environmental science and policy, and Brian McAdoo, associate professor of earth and climate science, shared their zoom-hosting duties.
They talked about social justice and social science in mitigating the impact of climate change. Their work examines the role of local communities and governments in disaster recovery and how they can work to create systems to manage aid and other resources as extreme weather events become more common.
As with most climate issues, marginalized communities are disproportionately impacted by these events, they said. Albright and McAdoo are searching for ways to help these regions create the capacity to respond and become more resilient to future events.
Professor Elizabeth AlbrightProfessor Brian McAdoo
The climate crisis is arguably the greatest challenge of this generation, but this esteemed panel brought much-needed attention to the obstacles facing every aspect of the world of climate science research and how their research is working to overcome them.
In April of 2019, the first government declared climate change to be a national emergency. Since then, over 1,900 local governments and more than 23 national governments have expressed the same sentiment.
A 2021 report released by the IPCC labeled climate change a ‘code red’ for humanity, and every day more than 2 million people search the term ‘climate crisis’ on Google. So it’s apparent, the climate crisis is imminent. What’s the solution? Experts at Duke’s annual Research Week posed their research-based solutions during a virtual panel hosted on February 1st. (View the Session)
Mark Borsuk and Jonathan Wiener’s analysis of risk factors concerning their solution, SRM.
The panel, mediated by Biology professor Mohamed Noor, began with a solution posed by professors Mark Borsuk and Jonathan Wiener. Known as solar radiation modification, SRM is “an attempt to moderate global warming by intentionally increasing the amount of incoming sunlight that is reflected by the atmosphere back to space,” according to Borsuk. Its primary technique is stratospheric aerosol injection. Wiener explained that their research is “trying to understand the risk… And we’re working to study these multiple impacts because all too often, as we’re all familiar with human decision making at the individual level or the governmental public policy level tends to focus on one thing at a time.” However, even with possible governance challenges at play, their research poses an extremely cheap yet effective solution for avoiding some of the worst impacts of climate change.
Dalia Patino Echeverri’s presentation on GRACE, an energy solution.
Next up on the panel was Dalia Patino Echeverri, an associate professor at Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment. She began by ruminating on the challenges faced in Texas after the snowstorm last year, and how climate change intensified those challenges. Her research focuses on how to address the electricity issues that climate change is producing in our nation, through a system called ‘GRACE’. ‘GRACE’ is a power grid that is risk-aware for clean, smart energy usage.
“It considers the forecast of electricity, the amount of load on the forecast of electricity generation from wind and sun of resources, and looks at the availability of conventional resources to schedule this commercial resources.” said Echeverri. Its operating system is extremely intelligent minimizing expected value and total cost of energy during times of climate crisis.
Brian Silliman’s presentation on Duke Restore.
Finally, a solution was presented from Brian Silliman, the Rachel Carson Distinguished Professor for marine biology. He introduced a more grassroots approach to climate restoration, called Duke Restore.
“A lot of our research and those of others have shown that the presence of restored marine environments greatly protects human societies on the coastline from increasing threat storm surge, and flooding generated in large part by climate change impacts, etc.” Silliman began.
Duke Restore aims to go out into ecosystems and restore the shorelines that have been lost, indirectly aiding in climate crisis alleviation. Silliman is currently collaborating with governments and other conservation organizations to help change the way they plan to restore these ecosystems from the bottom up. ““We’re doing this here in North Carolina with the US Marine Corps, changing the planting designs to switch the restoration trajectory from failure to success.”
Kay Jowers explaining her ideas for a more equitable approach to policy solutions.
Kay Jowers, a Senior Policy Associate at the Duke Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions, closed out the panel event with some final thoughts.
“My charge is to give you some food for thought about creating a more supportive environment for environmental and climate justice at Duke,” she began. She explained the need for action as compared to documentation and explained that equitable approaches are needed to avoid a climate disaster.
“In the world of Environmental Justice Studies, the communities, and the scholars have been calling for less problematization and documenting of problems, and more orientation towards solutions.” Her sentiments resonated deeply with the theme of the panel, as solution-based research is of paramount importance in the 21st century.
The Duke Research Week panel on climate change solutions posed tangible explications for the ever imminent climate crisis happening around the world. Though climate change is apparent now more than ever, researchers like these hold the solutions for the future.
Unfortunately, AI has also magnified one of humanity’s least desirable traits: bias. In recent years, algorithms influenced by bias have often caused more problems than they sought to fix.
When Google’s image recognition AI was found to be classifying some Black people as gorillas in 2015, the only consolation for those affected was that AI is improving at a rapid pace, and thus, incidents of bias would hopefully begin to disappear. Six years later, when Facebook’s AI made virtually the exact same mistake by labeling a video of Black men as “primates,” both tech fanatics and casual observers could see a fundamental flaw in the industry.
On November 17th, 2021, two hundred Duke Alumni living in all corners of the world – from Pittsburgh to Istanbul and everywhere in between – assembled virtually to learn about the future of algorithms, AI, and bias. The webinar, which was hosted by the Duke Alumni Association’s Forever Learning Institute, gave four esteemed Duke professors a chance to discuss their view of bias in the artificial intelligence world.
Dr. Stacy Tantum, Bell-Rhodes Associate Professor of the Practice of Electrical and Computer Engineering, was the first to mention the instances of racial bias in image classification systems. According to Tantum, early facial recognition did not work well for people of darker skin tones because the underlying training data – observations that inform the model’s learning process – did not have a broad representation of all skin tones. She further echoed the importance of model transparency, noting that if an engineer treats an AI as a “black box” – or a decision-making process that does not need to be explained – then they cannot reasonably assert that the AI is unbiased.
Stacy Tantum, who has introduced case studies on ethics to students in her Intro to Machine Learning Class, echoes the importance of teaching bias in AI classrooms.
While Tantum emphasized the importance of supervision of algorithm generation, Dr. David Hoffman – Steed Family Professor of the Practice of Cybersecurity Policy at the Sanford School of Public Policy – explained the integration of algorithm explainability and privacy. He pointed to the emergence of regulatory legislation in other countries that ensure restrictions, accountability, and supervision of personal data in cybersecurity applications. Said Hoffman, “If we can’t answer the privacy question, we can’t put appropriate controls and protections in place.”
To discuss the implications of blurry privacy regulations, Dr. Manju Puri – J.B. Fuqua Professor of Finance at the Fuqua School of Business – discussed how the big data feeding modern AI algorithms impact each person’s digital footprint. Puri noted that data about a person’s phone usage patterns can be used by banks to decide whether that person should receive a loan. “People who call their mother every day tend to default less, and people who walk the same path every day tend to default less.” She contends that the biggest question is how to behave in a digital world where every action can be used against us.
Dr. Philip Napoli has observed behaviors in the digital world for several years as James R. Shepley Professor of Public Policy at the Sanford School, specifically focusing on self-reinforcing cycles of social media algorithms. He contends that Facebook’s algorithms, in particular, reward content that gets people angry, which motivates news organizations and political parties to post galvanizing content that will swoop through the feeds of millions. His work shows that AI algorithms can not only impact the behaviors of individuals, but also massive organizations.
At the end of the panel, there was one firm point of agreement between all speakers: AI is tremendously powerful. Hoffman even contended that there is a risk associated with not using artificial intelligence, which has proven to be a revolutionary tool in healthcare, finance, and security, among other fields. However, while proven to be immensely impactful, AI is not guaranteed to have a positive impact in all use cases – rather, as shown by failed image recognition platforms and racist healthcare algorithms that impacted millions of Black people, AI can be incredibly harmful.
Thus, while many in the AI community dream of a world where algorithms can be an unquestionable force for good, the underlying technology has a long way to go. What stands between the status quo and that idealistic future is not more data or more code, but less bias in data and code.
As any first-year will tell you, the scramble for joining new clubs can be a daunting one. As the dust settled from the Involvement Fair, I looked at the fistful of flyers overflowing from my desk. One of these flyers stood out to me in particular: Student Collaborative on Health Policy (SCOHP). The program, backed by the Duke Margolis Center for Health Policy, seeks to educate, serve, and research within the Duke and Durham community regarding the social, economic, and political determinants of health care.
The Four Committees of SCOHP
Intrigued, I ventured to the Social Sciences building the following Sunday afternoon for their inaugural GBM. The event was lively, filled with a dizzying number of avenues for involvement. One such avenue that was the SCOHP-organized Health Policy Case Competition, advertised as a two-day team sprint to develop and pitch solutions to a pressing health care problem. The prizes were handsome: $1,000 for 1st place, $500 for 2nd place, and $250 for 3rd place, courtesy of the Margolis Center and RTI International. Furthermore, participants would be given access to mentors and industry leaders with vast experience in the area of public health.
Six teams, each consisting of three to five members, participated in the case-writing festivities. On Friday, September 10 at 5:00 PM, the case document was released. Our task: to develop a five-year plan aimed at increasing the screening for human papillomavirus (HPV) in either Malawi, South Africa, or Eswatini via a novel imaging technology known as microbeads. A considerably complex task given the vast number of social, institutional, and political barriers lying between the new technology and the women who needed it the most, not to mention the potential for HPV developing into cervical cancer if left undetected and untreated.
The Case Competition Title Document
Our team, Team J, assumed the role of a local NGO partnering with the Eswatini government. The preliminary hours of the competition were spent sifting through a sea of research. We read reviews of tissue imaging technology, feasibility studies on drug distribution networks, and mathematical projections of healthcare costs. At once invigorating and ceaselessly frustrating, the process of developing a comprehensive solution required significant mental and physical rearrangement. The nine hours following the release of the case were spent in a variety of popular campus study spots, from Bostock to Rubenstein Library, The Coffeehouse to dorm common rooms. In the early morning hours, our plan had finally begun to take shape.
A meager five hours of rest separated Day One of the competition from Day Two. After a night of brainstorming and research, we were left with three hours to finalize our five-minute proposals before a hard 12:00 PM deadline. As the deadline approached, we changed into our best attire from the clavicle up (the marvels of Zoom) and sat down. For the next hour and change, ideas flowed thickly and quickly; eager and persuasive tones emanating from our screens, tense silence as the judges moved into breakout rooms for deliberation.
The top three teams, Team J included, were selected for a final presentation round. The guidelines for this round: strengthen the argument, lengthen the presentation. We were in the final stretch. What followed was two hours of remarkably focused work, the likes of which I had never experienced in a team setting. As we sat down for the deciding presentation of the competition, I felt an immense sense of pride, not only in our solution, but also in our twenty-six hour transformations from perplexed receivers to confident presenters. This confidence and breadth of knowledge was visible in all three teams over the course of their fifteen-minute presentations and subsequent five-minute Q&A’s.
Team J’s Final Round Presentation Over Zoom
As the clock struck 7:00 PM on Saturday, September 11, the judges had submitted their verdict, at which point the teams turned towards the screen with rapt attention. The SCOHP organizers began reading the final standings. In what was described as an extremely close decision for the judges, Team J ended up winning first place. Battling the equally powerful forces of disbelief and sleep deprivation, we let out a collective breath. It was all over.
At the time of the competition, I had yet to complete a month at Duke. I didn’t know it then, but those twenty-six hours would end up being some of the most impactful in my first semester. The competition offered an entirely different approach to learning, one that was grounded in interdisciplinary inquiry and effective collaboration. And to think–it all started with a flyer buried underneath many other flyers.
The focal point of this article will be the Energy Conference, which occurred on November 10. If you’re curious about the future of clean energy within North Carolina, my colleague at the Duke Research Blog, Nhu Bui (Class of 2024), wrote a fascinating piece on the Energy Innovation Showcase.
Duke Energy Conference Organizing Team (photo by Jacob Hervey)
Over the course of eight hours, the Conference schedule alternated between a series of keynote addresses and fireside chats. The latter centered around a particular topical focus; each chat involved a faculty moderator and three industry experts whose organizations lie at the cutting edge of the climate transition within the private sector. In addition to the moderator’s questions, conference participants were invited to ask questions about the visions and innovations of their company.
The first fireside chat – Energy Transition Plans, Projects, and Pathways – broadly centered around the decarbonization of the energy industry. The speakers were Mallik Angalakudati, SVP of Strategy & Innovation at Washington Gas, Kirsten Knoepfle-Thorne, General Manager of Strategy at Chevron, and Jon Rodriguez, Energy Business Director of Engine Power Plants at Wartsila. All three acknowledged their companies’ traditional reliance on fossil fuels and stressed the need for emissions reduction moving into the future. The avenues each company was pursuing to reach this end varied considerably from green hydrogen to battery energy storage systems to carbon capture.
The second chat – Renewable Transportation – sought to highlight the latest innovations of firms within the burgeoning electric vehicle (EV) market. The panel consisted of Liz Finnegan (Fuqua ’17), Electric Vehicle Infrastructure and Energy at Rivian, Pei-Wen Hsu (Fuqua ’97), Global EV Marketing Director at Ford, and Kameale Terry, Co-Founder and CEO of ChargerHelp!. From launching new vehicles to servicing software breakdowns at charging stations across the nation, these speakers brought a wealth of perspectives to a high-growth market. They reinforced the certainty and necessity of mass consumer adoption of EV innovations, offering multiple roadmaps for the coming decades in transportation technologies.
Speakers from second fireside chat engaging with audience (photo by Jacob Hervey)
The third chat – Investing in Climate Tech Solutions – addressed the financial side of climate tech solutions. The speakers were Nneka Kibuule, SVP at Aligned Climate Capital, Lisa Krueger, President of US Operations at AES, and Sophie Purdom, co-founder of Climate Tech VC and an early-stage investor. Each speaker targeted climate solutions at different developmental stages, from early-stage ventures to companies ready for their IPOs. Taken as a whole, their firms reflected the robust nature of the financial ecosystem available to aspiring climate entrepreneurs and firms.
The three fireside chats engaged a number of angles through which the private sector can collectively curb climate change. As lab-developed technologies reach sufficient scale, the efficacy of climate solutions depend not solely on the quality of the innovation, but rather the quality of their implementation.
The conference conveniently coincided with the final few days of the COP26 Climate Summit in Glasgow, Scotland. As policy leaders half a world away wrangled over the minutiae of coal usage and climate financing, it became clear that a different sort of conversation was taking place on our campus. By engaging with the Energy Conference, even the most ardent skeptics of climate change progress would find it hard to deny the tangible shift in priorities that have occurred over the past few years. The prioritization of environmental concerns by the energy industry is now a given. The bigger question to consider is whether their plans and promises are sufficient to avert climate disaster.
Organized by students with support from the Duke University Energy Initiative and the Center for Energy, Development, and the Global Environment (EDGE) at The Fuqua School of Business, Duke University Energy Week brought together business and technology leaders within the energy industry to provide audience members insight into the industry’s future. The focal point of this article will be the Energy Innovation Showcase, which occurred on November 11. If you want a glimpse into the eight hours of energy-focused conversation that happened on November 10, my colleague at the Duke Research Blog, Vibhav Nandagiri (Class of 2025), wrote a fascinating piece on the Energy Conference.
Welcome to the Energy Innovation Showcase (photo by Jacob Hervey)
The evening kicked off with a riveting conversation between Ajulo E. Othow, Esq. (Founder & CEO of EnerWealth Solutions and General Counsel at Carolina Solar Services) and Marshall Cherry (Chief Operating Officer at Roanoke Electric Cooperative), moderated by Duke’s own Dr. Brian Murray (Director of the Duke Energy Initiative and Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions). Othow, Cherry, and Murray discussed the future of energy in North Carolina, from exciting prospects for renewable energy to access barriers in rural regions.
Othow, Cherry, and Murray in conversation (photo by Jacob Hervey)
At the conclusion of the keynote discussion, the evening segued into the tabling session, and the audience was released back into the Hub for two hours of mingling with energy representatives. There were spokespeople from every facet of the industry – development companies like Susteon and Good Solar, suppliers like Leyline Renewable Capital and Piedmont Lithium, and advocacy groups like the NC Sustainable Energy Association and the NC Business Council.
Grace Fernandez, Nicholas MEM/MBA student and co-chair of Energy Week, had her concerns about the whole affair at first. It was the first year that Energy Week was conducted through a hybrid of platforms, after being entirely online last year due to the pandemic. Fernandez said that it was hard to convince people – both Duke students and energy representatives – to come, but through determined calls and emails and targeted social media ads, Fernandez succeeded in her goal of getting a “new audience engaged in energy.”
Turns out, Fernandez had no need to worry about turnout. Some of the attendees included Joy and Tenzin (both Trinity ’22), who were not first-timers at the showcase; they came to enjoy the “interactive” aspect for another year and meet new people who had first-hand experience in the energy industry. Nicholas MEM student Anat is not necessarily studying energy, but still came for the “innovative” aspect – to see how new developments in energy might be more interdisciplinary and interconnected.
The attendees I spoke to took note of the fact that all the organizations present came from around North Carolina. Some, like Nicholas MEM student Chayan, would have preferred representation from further away. But others, like Pratt first-year Jack, from the Durham area, came to the showcase specifically to see what local energy companies are up to and what opportunities they may be offering.
Discussing Carolina Solar (photo by Jacob Hervey)
The spotlight on North Carolina was by design: the organizers of Energy Week had taken a different approach to this year’s showcase, specifically seeking to highlight groups from Durham and North Carolina at large. “I wanted Duke students to be able to see the incredible work happening in our own backyard,” said Trey Signorelli, an Energy Week Showcase co-chair. He commented that many Duke students aim to leave North Carolina and take their talents with them, so he wanted to put on display the many exciting opportunities they already had right on their doorstep.
Duke University Energy Week 2021 coincided with the final few days of the COP26 Climate Summit in Glasgow, Scotland. Three thousand miles away, world leaders debated coal usage and policy financing and the future of climate action. But if Thursday’s showcase taught us anything, it’s that if we want to see the future of energy, we don’t have too look far.
What happens when you give people money? Dr. Aisha Nyandoro and Natalie Foster know: through their research, they’ve seen the impacts of guaranteed income firsthand.
On November 9, as part of the Duke Center for Child and Family Policy’s Sulzberger Distinguished Lecture series, these experts discussed their work and what we can learn from it at “What Happens When You Give People Money: The Future of Economic Security for Children and Families.”
Natalie Foster
Foster, co-founder and co-chair of the Economic Security Project, began with the big idea of guaranteed income. Before the pandemic, wealth and income inequality were at all-time highs — disparities that “can be traced back to the origins of racialized capitalism.” But recently, things have gotten even harder. Wages have remained stagnant despite increases in productivity — and despite inflation, making it harder to afford things like rent. Foster denounced the “strong ideology that says that lack of security in this system is a personal failing. That if you can’t pull yourself up, there’s something wrong with you.” There’s something wrong with the system, Foster said. “People are working. The economy isn’t.”
Foster said that even though there didn’t appear to be room in these political conditions to do things differently, she had the “audacity to imagine something else: the ‘adjacent possible.’” She wanted to give cash to people directly, ensuring an income floor regardless of whatever crises that may abound.
Foster worked with the mayor of Stockton, California on the Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration (SEED), which provided 125 Stockton residents with $500 monthly payments for two years.
Dr. Aisha Nyandoro
Foster was connected by a mutual friend to Nyandoro, the CEO of Springboard to Opportunities. Nyandoro had launched The Magnolia Mother’s Trust, which provides low-income Black mothers in Jackson, Mississippi with $1,000 monthly payments for one year.
With The Magnolia Mother’s Trust, Nyandoro sought to shift away from economic policy “rooted in ‘what is,’ and toward ‘what could be.’” This concept has a rich history, she said, and includes the work of Martin Luther King Jr. and the Black Panthers. She had a specific ‘what if’ in mind: “What if when Black women told us what they needed, we believed them?” What if we sought to overturn the very structures that keep these people down, and subverted the “paternalistic nature of the social safety net”?
Nyandoro stated that as a researcher, when she has questions, she “goes back to the people.” When she did, she found that although people’s needs were individual, “cash was ubiquitous” — cash was a solution that could address every single one of the problems that she heard. Giving cash directly could help combat a system that “penalizes people for being poor, rather than trying to lift them out of poverty.”
Why low-income Black mothers? Nyandoro explained that in order to do the work of economic liberation, one must identify what’s wrong with the system. In this case, that meant identifying those who are the most negatively impacted by the system, and using what limited resources are available to help them specifically.
Nyandoro turned to her findings: giving people cash works. These mothers are often working tirelessly, holding down two or three jobs and struggling to make ends meet. After receiving the money, people continue to work and often do so at higher rates (a major fear of opponents of guaranteed income). As a result, their income is often doubled — with life-changing results.
Beyond the numbers, Nyandoro emphasized that “we are seeing joy. We don’t talk about joy enough as it relates to Black women.” This money allowed Black women to feel free, to be entrepreneurial: to “dare to dream for the first time — for themselves and for their families.”
She referenced Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s famous speech “The Danger of a Single Story,” explaining that in order to change the narrative, “we need to change the narrator.” It’s time to think about whose voices we center.
In Jackson, Mississippi and Stockton, California, the pair had carried out research about the ‘adjacent possible.’ They’d used cities and states as “laboratories in democracy.” Foster said that their work was paving the way for gradual advances in guaranteed income — slowly, but surely. Then, the pandemic hit.
Suddenly, ideas that had recently been dismissed as too radical were viewed as necessary. Often unable to work, people needed money fast in order to put food on the table and cover their most urgent needs. The federal government rose to the challenge with the American Rescue Plan, providing stimulus checks and pandemic unemployment insurance, plus expanding the Child Tax Credit. “The ‘adjacent possible’”, Foster said, “had become the possible.”
The country saw an “immediate drop in poverty.” The pandemic was revealing, said Foster. It revealed that cash provides time, stress reduction, and resilience. It revealed that cash serves as a tool to create economic security and “build back better.” Above all, it revealed that “poverty is a policy choice that we’re currently making. We could make a different policy choice in order to eliminate it.”
The pandemic also revealed that stimulus checks and the Child Tax Credit were “very popular policies.” Nyandoro has observed support in the form of petitions for monthly cash transfers, the founding of organizations like Mayors for a Guaranteed Income and Guaranteed Income Community of Practice, and the launch of over a hundred guaranteed income pilots of some sort. All these efforts, Nyandoro said, are pushing toward “the same North Star”: centering the needs of families and achieving economic liberation through federal policy.
Foster turned the discussion toward next steps: “these victories have been immense, but could disappear” if the Build Back Better Act does not pass. The Act includes a year-long extension of the expanded Child Tax Credit, a key instantiation of guaranteed income. The Child Tax Credit has bipartisansupport.
If the extension of the Child Tax Credit passes, then according to Foster, guaranteed income is one step closer to becoming a cornerstone of social policy. This would be a “nail in the coffin of the way we’ve done policy for the last fifty years — that you’re only worth what you do in the world. Every human has dignity and worth, and we have the opportunity to build a policy that says just that.”
Nyandoro agreed with Foster. As an anti-poverty advocate, she believes in a world without poverty: a world where “everyone can have a life of dignity for themselves and their families.” She believes that the ‘adjacent possible’ is achievable if “we can move beyond our own individual needs in order to view life as a collective, where prosperity is shared rather than hoarded.” She ended by quoting Toni Morrison: “if you have some power, then your job is to empower someone else.”
Last Friday, the House voted to pass the Build Back Better Act, which now heads to the Senate.
