On April 17, undergraduate and graduate students from the 2018-19 project teams shared their research highlights with the community at the third annual Bass Connections Showcase in Penn Pavilion.

More than 650 people—including Duke faculty, staff, students and donors as well as representatives from the National Science Foundation, Durham City Council, Durham County Board of Commissioners, Durham Public Schools Board of Education, UNC Chapel Hill, NC State, NC Central, Durham Tech and NC School of Science and Math—took part in the event.

Valerie Ashby, Dean of Trinity College of Arts & Sciences, gave opening remarks. “With broad engagement from all corners of the university,” she said, “this program is building bridges across disciplines and schools – bringing out the best of Duke when we work together, and helping us redefine and enhance higher education. From their first year on campus, Duke students are experiencing the joy of asking hard questions and the necessity of embracing uncertainty on the path toward discovery. They are also learning to work in teams that are demographically, culturally and intellectually diverse.”

Lightning Talks

Help Desk: A Student Initiative to Address the Social Determinants of Health

Wired for Learning: Supporting Thinking Skills in the K-2 Classroom

Improving Neurosurgery Outcomes in Uganda

Chronicling the Economic and Social History of Coal in Central Appalachia

Quantifying Gerrymandering

Awards and Grants

Vice Provost for Interdisciplinary Studies Edward Balleisen recognized this year’s award recipients for mentorship, student research and best poster.

Bass Connections Award for Outstanding Mentorship

Kathleen Burns (Ph.D. student, English), DECIPHER: Case Studies in Drinking Water Quality

James Herrera (Postdoctoral Associate, Evolutionary Anthropology), How Do People Affect Zoonotic Disease Dynamics in Madagascar?

Bass Connections Student Research Awards

Individual awards: Melanie Camejo Coffigny ’20; Alexandra DiGiacomo ’20; Courtni France (M.A. student, Bioethics & Science Policy); Irene Koc ’20; Melissa Marchese ’21; Katherine McCusker (Ph.D. student, Art, Art History & Visual Studies)

Collaborative awards: Alice Chung ’21, Abhi Jadhav ’21, Rohin Maganti ’21 and Kamyar Yazdani ’20; Jessica Coleman (Ph.D. student, Clinical Psychology), Godfrey Kisigo (M.S. student, Global Health) and Saumya Sao ’20; Jason Kwak ’21 and Neelesh Pandey ’21; Anna Nordseth (Ph.D. student, Ecology) and Alina Xiao ’21

Poster Competition

Judges’ Selection Winner

Big Data for Reproductive Health (Amy Finnegan, Megan Huchko, Kelly Hunter, Daisy Fang, Katherine Gan, Anu Kandadai, Colby Matthiasson, Celia Mizelle, Molly Paley, Nicole Rapfogel, Saumya Sao, Liz Shulman, Samhitha Sunkara, Melanie Lai Wai)

Judges’ Selection Runners-up

Developing Automated Tools for Political Fact-checking (Matthew O’Boyle, Sherry Feng)

Identifying Health Care Provider Needs for Epilepsy Care in Uganda (Deborah Koltai Attix, Anthony Fuller, Sarah Snouse, Caleigh Smith, Olivia Ratliff, Grace Cai)

Peer Avatars for Mental Health: A Peer to Peer Support Program (Christina Boghosian, Kyra Citron, Brooke Keene, Bruny Kenou, Urmi Pandya, Ameya Sanyal, Taylor Shabani, Lindsey Trematerra, Esther Wang, Lulu Wein, Shan Zhong, Jonathan Cloughesy, Savannah Erwin, David Goldston, Guillermo Sapiro, Timothy Strauman, Sue Wasiolek, Nancy Zucker)  

Rite of Passage: Determining Elephant-mediated Seed Shadows from Ground-truth Gut Passage Data (Chris Beirne, Chase L. Nuñez, Melissa Baldino, Seokmin Kim, Julia Knorr, Taylor Minich, Lingrong Jin, Alina Xiao, Walter Mbamy, Guichard Ndzeng Obiang, Juliana Masseloux, Tanguy Nkoghe, Médard Obiang Ebanega, Colin Rundel, Justin P. Wright, John R. Poulsen)

Audience Choice Winner

Low-cost Laparoscopic Surgery with Tele-mentoring (Selena An, Erin Brown, Aryaman Gupta, Bailey Knight, Shreyas Kulkarni, Junyu Liang, Claire North, Apoorva Ramamurthy, Natalie Rozman, Chris Lam, Jenna Mueller, Tamara Fitzgerald)

Audience Choice Runners-up

Pocket Colposcope: Analysis of Bringing Elements of Referral Services to Primary/Community Care (Valentina Alvarez, Karina Moreno Bueno, Ryan Fitzgerald, Michyla Greene, Liv McKinney, Morgan McKinney, Elena Roberts, Diana Zabala, Lillian Zhu)

What American Space Is Sacred to You? (America’s Sacred Spaces team members)

Education & Human Development Special Event

On April 9, students, faculty and staff gathered in Gross Hall to celebrate the 2018-19 Bass Connections project teams in the Education & Human Development theme at the fourth annual EHDx. The event included lightning talks from undergraduate members of each project team, awards, a poster session and reception.

Best Talk

Bruny Kenou ’20, Virtual Avatar Coaches: Improving Mental Health Treatment for College Students with Accessible Peer Support

Best Poster

Mindfulness in Human Development (Briana Bernstein, Roxy Ghadimi, Alejandra Gómez, Lindsey Noonan, Alizeh Sheikh, Emilia Soulios, Morgan Vickery)

Learn More

• View more photos from the Bass Connections Showcase and EHDx.
• Read stories from students on their Bass Connections experience.
• Browse faculty perspectives on leading Bass Connections project teams.