Category: Students Page 28 of 42

A fireside chat with Marc Jeuland

On October 6, 2015

In Biology, Climate/Global Change, Engineering, Environment/Sustainability, Faculty, Field Research, Global Health, Medicine, Students

Living in Few dorm has its perks, aside from being right beside the bus stop. My faculty-in-residence, Dr. Hwansoo Kim had kindly hosted a reception in his residence, where he invited Dr. Marc Jeuland for a talk about the development of water infrastructure to help improve health. A Chat with Dr. Jeuland
I was immediately captivated when I saw the email invite – as I personally had worked with affordable water filtration, in the developing world, so this was right in my field of interest.

Jeuland is an assistant professor in the Sanford School of Public Policy and the Duke Global Health Institute. He shared his experience working on one of his most recent, major projects, which was of his water infrastructure improvements in Zarqa, Jordan. For a long time, Jordan has been experiencing a water crisis. For the residents of Zarqa, water often has to be purchased from other areas, and then carefully preserved for days, or weeks, and even up to a month. The piped water infrastructure that currently existed in Zarqa was very inefficient, and was a major source of the shortages.

Jeuland, who is an environmental engineer, said that as much as 70 percent of this water can be lost from pipelines as the water reaches the citizens of Zarqa. Jeuland worked to assess inefficiencies within the current water supply systems and tried to design and implement improvements to remedy the faults.

Marc Jeuland is an assisstant professor of global health and public policy

Aside from his work in Zarqa, Jeuland has been involved with countless other projects and studies that have ultimately benefited underserved communities around the world. He has characterized the effects of contaminated groundwater on inhabitants in Rift Valley, Ethiopia and done a detailed analysis of the correlation between water quality and kidney disease in Sri Lanka.

Jeuland’s work shows the real-world applicability of interdisciplinary fields. His work has encompassed the field of not only environmental science, but also behavioral science, economics, and engineering.

For those of you interested in learning more about the interdisciplinary fields of global health and environmental sciences/policy, it would definitely be a great idea to take a look at the classes Jeuland teaches, which include “ENVIRON 538: Global Environmental Health: Economics and Policy” and “GLHLTH 531: Cost Benefit analysis for Health and Environmental Policy”.

It was an honor to get to meet Professor Jeuland. I could tell he was a very busy man. By the time you read this, he is probably off traveling somewhere else in the world, working to improve more lives.

By Thabit Pulak, Class of 2018

SiNON Overcomes Barriers to Win Grand Prize

By Devin Nieusma

On October 6, 2015

In Biomedical Engineering, Business/Economics, Nanotech, Neuroscience, Students

In order to win Duke’s 16th annual Start-Up Challenge, Afreen Allam only had to cross the blood-brain barrier.

Entrepreneur, angel investor, and Duke parent Magdalena Yesil opening the event.

Amongst a pool of entrepreneurs selling raw desserts, footwear, and online education programs, her patented neurological treatment impressed the judges enough to earn her the Wickett Family Grand Prize.

The Start-Up Challenge is a year-long entrepreneurship competition with an entry pool of over 100 student teams. Throughout the year, participants get weeded out, down to the final nine teams. The Grand Finale was held in the Fuqua School of Business on Sept. 30.

Finalists were given four minutes to pitch their idea in the hopes of winning $50,000. And for Ms. Allam, that dream came true.

Her company, SiNON, will use the prize money to continue developing her product, a patented nanoparticle that encapsulates drugs to be delivered to the brain. Her research began in her third year as an undergraduate student at one of the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) that was affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She delved into chemistry research, developing technologies with carbon nanotubes with the intention of creating an alternative to chemotherapy to battle cancer. She was encouraged to create a patent for her work, a process she initially didn’t know anything about but underwent anyway, receiving it about a year and a half ago.

Afreen Allam (holding giant check) with her friends, family and $50,000 in winnings.

Now a student at Fuqua, the direction of her research changed last summer, when Ms. Allam began focusing more on neurological diseases after discovering that her nanoparticle was able to cross the blood-brain barrier, something only 2 percent of drugs can do. Her current product, SiNON, works to increase the effectiveness of neurological treatments, as well as reducing associated side effects.

She said the funding from the Start-Up Challenge will help her company conduct feasibility studies to allow her to approach biotech and pharmaceutical companies.

Duke co-hosts THInC: Triangle Health Innovation Challenge

By Anika Ayyar

On September 24, 2015

In Biology, Biomedical Engineering, Business/Economics, Computers/Technology, Data, Engineering, Global Health, Medicine, Science Communication & Education, Students

Blue Devils and Tar Heels may be rivals on the court, but there is little doubt they can be partners in research and innovation.

Participants broke into teams, and spent the weekend working on their solutions.

Last weekend, the Duke School of Medicine Innovation and Entrepreneurship Activity Group and the Carolina Health Entrepreneurship Initiative jointly organized the first ever Triangle Health Innovation Challenge (THInC), a 48-hour ‘hackathon’ that brought together students, clinicians, engineers, and business people from around the Triangle to collaborate on solving problems in healthcare and medicine.

The organizers wanted to tap into the collective knowledge of the Triangle to tackle healthcare problems in novel ways, and to engage individuals who did not necessarily see themselves as healthcare innovators.

“We realized that the Triangle has an immense pool of academic, clinical, and technical talent, but these groups of people rarely interact,” said co-organizer Tanmay Gokhale, an M.D./Ph.D. student in Biomedical engineering at Duke. “We wanted to bring them all into the same room and empower them to make a difference in healthcare.”

Teams had the chance to meet with mentors, who advised them on their ideas and business strategies.

On Friday, the first evening of the event, 127 participants pitched 44 different healthcare problems, proposed 25 solutions, and broke into 15 teams that were, for the most part, interdisciplinary and involved members from across the Triangle.

Many Pratt School of Engineering students, both undergraduate and graduate, participated in the event, and several were members of winning teams.

Each team worked through the weekend, designing and creating a product that delivered on a proposed solution. The projects ranged from evaluating treatment and clinic options for patients through a mobile app, to informing future patients by crowdsourcing opinions and advice from people who had experienced similar medical situations.

Teams, judges, and audience members gathered in the Trent Semans Center for Health Education on Sunday afternoon for the final presentations.

The ingenuity and quality of the solutions that were presented on Sunday afternoon was stunning; each team had drawn from their own firsthand experiences with the shortcomings and challenges of the healthcare system to deliver targeted, nuanced products that tackled meaningful issues.

In a time-cap of three minutes, each team presented the fruits of their weekend of hacking, and were judged not only on their creativity and technical complexity, but also on clinical and business feasibility. Four winners were awarded $13,000 in cash and credits to work with the API (programming interface) of Validic, a Durham company that collects de-identified patient data from medical devices, wearables and apps.

Team Tiba, the winner of the grand prize, created a wearable physical therapy activity tracker to ensure that patients performed their physical therapy exercises regularly and correctly.

Team Breeze, winner of the runner-up prize, presented a smart lung function trainer and app to encourage pursed-lip breathing exercises in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

Team Leia, the winners of the Mosaic Health Solutions prize, developed a digital to-do list for physicians, which integrated intimately with stores of data in order to send live push notifications about patient updates and prioritize different actions for different studies. The team hoped to improve

Team Tiba, winners of the Grand Prize and the Validic mHealth Prize, pose after the awards ceremony.

patient and physician satisfaction as well as patient safety, by assuring that doctors were up to date on conditions and constantly in sync with changes and improvements. Their prototype piggybacked off of current medical APIs, and queried existing data, making it easy for the roughly 150,000 clinicians who already store their data online to easily transition to the app.

Given the immense success of THInC, the organizers said they’re already planning to do it again next year. They’d like to recruit more students as well as more professional developers and programmers so that more teams could come away with a functioning prototype of their solution.

For any questions regarding the event, or planning, promoting, or executing next year’s event, please contact info@thincweekend.org. Interested individuals can also join the Health 2.0 NC Triangle group to participate in other similar events and meet similarly minded people in the area – all are welcome!

Post By Anika Ayyar

Fisticuffs Among the Mantis Shrimp

By Karl Bates

On September 23, 2015

In Animals, Biology, Students

When mantis shrimp (Stomatopoda) dispute territory or mating rights, they use the tools at hand – namely two super-sonic bludgeons powerful enough to dismember a live crab or break through a clam shell.

Mantis shrimp are pugnacious pugilistic crustaceans . (Photo by Nazir Amin via Wikimedia Commons.)

Mantis shrimp are pugnacious and pugilistic. (Photo by Nazir Amin via Wikimedia Commons.)

Fortunately, they’ve developed a way to use these deadly clubs on each other without causing too many fatalities. In a ritualized battle called “telson sparring,” the combatants take turns hammering on each other’s tail-plate, which is raised up like a shield.

Graduate student Patrick Green watched more than 30 such contests in captive Panamanian mantis shrimp to discover that it wasn’t the shrimp who hit hardest who won the bout, but the one who hit the most frequently.

Green and his Ph.D. supervisor, biology professor Sheila Patek, hypothesize that the ritualized fighting could be a display of overall vigor and tenacity rather than outright punching power.

CITATION: “Contests with deadly weapons: telson sparring in mantis shrimp (Stomatopoda),” Green PA, Patek SN. Biology Letters, Sept. 2015. DOI:10.1098/rsbl.2015.0558

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psnvOqtRmzI]

Post by Karl Leif Bates, Director of Research Communications

Duke Engineers Build Bridges in Rwanda

By Anika Ayyar

On September 14, 2015

In Engineering, Environment/Sustainability, Science Communication & Education, Students

Summer means something different for everyone; for some, the months after school let out mean total relaxation, and for others, it’s time to get cranking on jobs and internships that help build on new skills. For a group of ten Duke students in the Pratt School of Engineering, this past summer consisted of an incredible trip to Rwanda through Duke Engineers for International Development, (DEID) a student-led club on campus.

Members of the Duke team of DEID standing on the bridge they built.

My roommate, Catherine Wood (Pratt ’18) was one of the fearless students on this trip. Her specific group of DEID members partnered with Bridges to Prosperity, a non-profit that specializes in building bridges in underdeveloped countries, especially within Africa and Latin America.

Members of the team carrying rocks on their heads.

Her team began working on their project at Duke last spring, when they virtually designed their bridge using a software program called AutoCAD. They worked through multiple rounds of prototypes to get their design approved by Bridges to Prosperity, and organized construction schedules and determined what quantities of each material they would need for their project.

Inauguration ceremony for the bridge.

In mid-May, the team journeyed to Rwanda and began the digging process. Much of their work consisted of carrying rocks from where they were dumped (about 150 meters away) to the bridge site, and while some people used wheelbarrows to transport the rocks, others (like Catherine on the left) mastered the skill of carrying them on their heads!

The students spent six weeks building the tiers and anchors of the bridge, and laying the cable, and after their power tools arrived, they spent the final week laying wooden slats across the bridge to establish the surface. Throughout the process, the team worked closely with a university in Kigali, Rwanada called IPRC, where they fabricated metal material for both their bridge, and another bridge being built nearby.

Martha, a member of the Duke team, playing jumprope with some of the local children.

Physically building the bridge and working through the experience of designing and constructing an architecture project was certainly one of the main highlights of the trip, but getting to know the other students on the trip as well as the local community was Catherine’s favorite part. The Duke team lived behind the local school, so they played basketball and soccer daily with the children, and helped them practice their English. They also grew very close with the workers after spending nine or ten hours a day working alongside them. Though conversation was initially difficult, the team moved past the language barrier after the first couple weeks, and forged genuine, meaningful relationships.

As for the Duke team, Catherine remarks that she could not have asked for a better group of people to work with day in and day out. Each member of the team put so much effort into building relationships with community members, and into building the bridge itself, and no member of the team took any aspect of their experience for granted.

By Anika Ayyar

A day in the life of a coding bootcamp student

By Anika Radiya-Dixit

On September 8, 2015

In Computers/Technology, Students

7:45 a.m. – I’m already late. I know I’ve pressed the snooze button at least 4 times again.

8:15 a.m. – Rushing out the door, I balance an omelet sandwich in my right hand and a jumbled set of keys in the other. Already at eight of twelve weeks into the camp, we are learning to write uncomplicated, manageable code when building complex web applications using JavaScript.

8:40 a.m. – I can see sirens on the side of the highway and I resist the urge to groan as I sit impatiently in another traffic jam. The California sun illuminates the dried landscape in a gorgeous golden glow, and I take a moment to enjoy the view.

8:53 a.m. – I’m just in time for the 9:00 am algorithm session. It is my favorite part of the day, when the other students and I work in teams to solve data structure problems on whiteboards. I pair up with a former state trooper and an environmental engineer to figure out an efficient method for creating a linked list. I enjoy discussing our thought processes on finding the solution, sometimes listening to their interpretation, other times explaining my ideas.

10:30 a.m. – Gathering my notebook, I eagerly sit at the front of the room for lecture. Many coding courses are online, but I appreciate the in-person classroom structure where I can easily ask questions about confusing topics. The teacher is clarifying overarching concepts about the flow of instructions through the computer. The lopsided stick figures and feeble diagrams always amuse us, but they do refine my understanding of the subject.

Flow of requests and responses in a typical web application.

11:45 a.m. – “McDonalds?” someone asks, and we give him a look. It’s nearly time for lunch, so some of our classmates head towards the fridge in the kitchen to heat up leftovers, and the rest of us decide where to eat. Compromising on a good lunch spot has proven surprisingly complicated – but quite a useful skill. There’s always a vegetarian, someone who doesn’t like specific foods, someone else who’s already eaten at a place we finally agreed on, and plenty of other variables that can’t be factored into a simple Calculus equation. It feels more along the lines of –

How choosing a place to dine really works.

We end up eating at four different restaurants.

1:00 p.m. – The best part about going to an intensive coding bootcamp are the people. “What do you see as the future of your marketing agency?” “Do you think renting out rooms of your apartment was a good decision?” “How would you recommend negotiating salary?” On our way back to the camp building, I ask my classmates a plethora of questions about the working world, listening to their complaints about housing and tips on building up an enjoyable career life.

2:00 p.m. – We work together on a JavaScript group chat assignment to solidify the learning from morning lecture. I talk with my classmates on which external libraries to use, pair-program the complicated structure of files, and bicker about who changed the code that crashed the app.

6:00 p.m. – As evening ensues, we decide to fuel our minds with soup and sandwiches; despite our mental fatigue after a long day of work, dinner is a pleasant affair.

10:00 p.m. – My partner and I have steadfastly worked the day on our JavaScript online store to sell diamonds, swords, and Lego mugs. It’s gotten late, but I’m still burbling about the features we have yet to code. As I head out the door, keys swinging on my forefinger, I’m already excited for tomorrow – another day to learn, another time to grow with new friends, and another adventure to enjoy.

Advertisement for Lego mugs on my JavaScript online store.

Post by Anika Radiya-Dixit, ECE/Comp Sci 2017

New Blogger: Meet Devin Nieusma

By Devin Nieusma

On September 8, 2015

In Environment/Sustainability, Science Communication & Education, Students

2015-09-03 17.36.37

Hi! I’m Devin, one of the newest members of the Duke Research Blog team, as well as the Duke community as a whole. I’m thrilled to be given the opportunity to write about some of the research going on at this incredible school. It amazes me to think that some of the people I’ve jostled with for a spot on the C-1 bus may be involved in cutting-edge investigations into biomedical engineering, education, animal behavior, economics, and much more.

I hail from a variety of places, including Michigan, Tennessee, and Belgium, but most recently Reston, Virginia. Now, Pegram is the place I call home.

Two adult guinea pigs, from Wikimedia Commons

Back at home, I was involved in a project working on developing a sustainable agriculture system for my high school. I also volunteered as a foster parent for a guinea pig rescue for several years. While I miss working for that noble cause, I’ve swapped out guinea pigs for lemurs by becoming a member of the Roots & Shoots club here on campus. Other activities I’m involved in are the Outing Club, the Environmental Alliance, and most recently, the eco-representative organization for my residence hall.

I’m pretty much all over the map at Duke, both in terms of my academic interests and the amount of times I’ve gotten hopelessly lost. However, I am strongly considering a double major in environmental science and French.

I can’t wait to help share the research projects that my fellow Blue Devils are working on!

Aspiring data scientist & cow mascot joins Duke Research Blog

By Yunchu Huang

On September 4, 2015

In Science Communication & Education, Students

I’m YunChu. In my former (read: pre-Duke) life, I was a dashing cow mascot/enthusiast, sousaphone player, and preschool teacher.

Charming a bride who desperately needed a Chick-fil-A milkshake after her wedding party

Since then, I’ve played the bassoon with my professor at a local Durham bar, drank my fair share of subpar Turkish beers in the beautiful city of Istanbul, and spent a disproportionate amount of my college career standing in front of the extensive chocolate bar selection in our beloved campus café, Bella Union. Now a senior at Duke, I’m scrambling to figure out the meaning of life along with my thesis topic and slowly coming to terms with my (appalling) recent discovery of the fact that you cannot spell YunChu without the “unc”.

Sometimes I get to do cool things like write briefs for congressmen or explore data management options for the White House Switchboard. This time, as you might have inferred from the title of this post, I’ve acquired the newest and coolest job on campus where I’ll be going around bugging friends, professors, and strangers alike about blogging their research—I’ve finally found a good excuse!

Join me as I document my last year of exploring this rich community that is Duke Research, brought to you in cocktail conversation-esque snapshots. We’ll be marveling over elegant solutions, chuckling over quirky explanations, and having a grand ole’ time appreciating just how diverse and incredible our friends and colleagues really are.

By YunChu Huang, Duke 2016

New Blogger: Madeline Halpert

By Madeline Halpert

On September 4, 2015

In Science Communication & Education, Students

Madeline Halpert, Duke 2019

Hi! My name is Madeline Halpert and I am a freshman at Duke this year. I grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan, so I’m very excited about the Durham weather, and to be a writer for the Duke research blog!

Although I do not have an extensive background in science, besides the typical high school science courses, I look forward to the many opportunities to learn about the scientific field here at Duke. I have some experience in journalism, as I was an editor-in-chief of my high school newsmagazine. I have also written an op-ed in The New York Times as well as a piece for Scholastic’s Choices Magazine about teenagers who have struggled with depression. In the past I have enjoyed writing in-depth feature stories about topics such as the pressures of the high school educational system, mental health and incarceration. This year, I am excited to broaden my areas of expertise and try a different style of writing. I think the Duke research blog will be the perfect place to do that.

Over the next four years I plan to take a variety of science courses, and try out some of the wonderful research opportunities Duke has to offer.

Although I am not certain of my major, I am leaning towards studying English and perhaps obtaining a certificate in journalism. In my free time, I enjoy long distance running and playing guitar, and am happy to be a part of The Chronicle and the running club this year.

I’m very much looking forward to learning about different types of research and researchers, and sharing my experiences via blogging!

Student Ideas Have a Place to Call Home

By Karl Bates

On September 3, 2015

In Biomedical Engineering, Computers/Technology, Engineering, Science Communication & Education, Students

Student project teams have become an important part of engineering education at Duke and elsewhere in recent years, but our campus wasn’t always the easiest place for them to work.

DukeMakers showed off a 3D-printed replica of Duke Chapel in the same blue as its construction tarping.

When the robotic submarine team needed to test for leaks in their craft, “we used to roll a bin down the hallway at CIEMAS and fill it up at the water fountain,” said Will Stewart, a junior on the club.

Stewart was showing off his team’s shiny new workroom in The Foundry, a purpose-built 7,600-square-foot space on two levels in the basement of Gross Hall. It has a huge industrial sink.

The Foundry’s airy main workspace was once the home to grimy, ugly machinery that sustained Gross Hall.

Throughout the Foundry, lockers for gear double as whiteboards and sturdy butcher block tables stand ready to take any pounding, grinding and soldering the students can dream up.

In addition to the dedicated spaces for the larger project teams. there is plenty of meeting space and shop space for optics and electronics and some light machining.

Originally the home to big, ugly utilities for the one-time chemistry building, the Foundry space was converted for student use with input from students and faculty representing the Pratt School of Engineering, the Innovation Co-Lab, Duke Innovation and Entrepreneurship, the Nicholas School of the Environment, the Physics Department, and Gross Hall neighbors the Energy Initiative and the Information Initiative.

“It’s amazing that what was actually an ugly space in the basement could turn into a beautiful space for students,” Interim Engineering Dean George Truskey said in brief remarks.

Owen Chung demonstrated IEEE’s robo drink mixer that can combine six different fluids on command from an iPhone app.

The Electric Vehicle Club is looking forward to having one good space, rather than six cramped rooms spread around Hudson Hall to build their super-efficient carbon fiber prototypes. “So far, what we have fits, but we’re actually looking for more space,” said club president Charlie Kritzmacher. “We’re a pretty big club.”

By Karl Leif Bates, Director of Research Communications