During three live, online sessions on April 15 and 16, Bass Connections project team members presented lightning talks and hosted virtual breakout “tables” to share their research with over 600 guests at the 2021 Fortin Foundation Bass Connections Showcase. Many teams also shared research highlights through student-authored team profiles, digital presentations and research posters, which are gathered in this year's Fortin Foundation Bass Connections Virtual Showcase digital exhibit.

Ebony Boulware, Vice Dean for Translational Sciences in the School of Medicine, kicked off the live event with opening remarks. Judith Kelley, Dean of the Sanford School of Public Policy, opened the second session, and Ed Balleisen, Vice Provost of Interdisciplinary Studies, opened the final session.

“As a physician, research scientist and educator, I know firsthand about the value of interdisciplinary collaboration to tackle complex problems. We need to work together, and we need expertise and perspectives from different areas of knowledge to solve important problems. That’s what I love about the Bass Connections program. It embodies the best of Duke, integrating faculty research with student education and bringing all corners of the campus together to dig into tough challenges in deep partnership with our local and global communities.” –Ebony Boulware

An alumni panel moderated by Erik Wibbels, Professor of Political Science and Chair of the Bass Connections Faculty Advisory Council, featured three former members of Bass Connections project teams: Megan McGufficke (International Comparative Studies ’16); Samuel Corwin (Environmental Sciences & Policy ’17); and Lizzie Hunsaker (Ph.D. in Chemistry ’19). 

Watch Lightning Talks

Students from nine project teams shared lightning talks at this year’s live showcase. Talks featured research ranging from the development of novel gene therapies to fight against Alzheimer’s disease to the policy and economics of regenerative grazing in North Carolina to the design and use of 3D-modeling software for reconstructing historical maps and images.

• Community-based Testing and Primary Care to Mitigate COVID-19 Transmission, Keren Hendel (MPP ’22) and Zachary Rene ’21
• Harnessing Data from North Carolina’s Jails to Inform Effective Policies, Brianna Joyce ’22 and Albert Sun ’23
• Mapping History: Seeing Premodern Cartography through GIS and Game Engines, Brittany Forniotis (Ph.D. in Art, Art History & Visual Studies ’26) and Emma Rand ’22
• Migration and Deportation among Guatemalans in the U.S. and Guatemala, Mateo Villamizar Chaparro (Ph.D. in Political Science ’23) and Arya Patel ’22
• Policy Implications of Cross-sector Strategies for Childhood Food Insecurity in North Carolina, Sophie Hurewitz ’22 and Elizabeth Jones (MPP ’22)
• ReadyView: Increasing Access to Laparoscopic Surgery, Jamila Otieno ’23 and Siddhesh Zadey (MS in Global Health ’21) 
• Regenerative Grazing to Mitigate Climate Change, Juhi Dattani ’23 (NCSU) and Annie Roberts ’21
• Strategies for Energy, Water and Agriculture in Rural Ethiopia, Marie McNamara (MEM ’21) and Sagar Shah ’22
• Treating Alzheimer’s with Gene Therapy, Ishika Gupta ’23 and Sahil Malhotra ’23

Check Out the Winners of the 2021 Poster Competition

The Sex and Contraception Among College and Graduate Students During COVID-19 project team was the winner of this year’s Bass Connections Poster Competition Judges’ Selection prize. 

Runners-up

Three teams received runners-up honors:

• Documenting Oral Histories and Business, Data and Policy Analysis on the American Predatory Lending and the Global Financial Crisis (poster by Colins Abanda, McKenna Baker, Arjun Bakshi, Carolyn Chen, Michael Dymond, Danielle Engliman, Jett Hollister, Esther Hong, Malena Lopez-Sotelo, Sean Nguyen, Braelyn Parkman, Maria Paz Rios, Cameron Polo, Raghav Rasal, Patrick Rochelle, Jacob Satisky, Sebastian Soriano Perez, Neha Vangipurapu, Olivia Wivestead, Jessie Xu, Sana Pashankar, Sarah Zhao, Charlie Zong, Katie Kaufman and Jacob Argue from the American Predatory Lending and the Global Financial Crisis project team)
• Myths and Misinformation Surrounding Oral Contraceptives on Twitter (poster by Shana Abraham, Priya Parkash, Meghan Peel and Qintian Zhang from the Big Data for Reproductive Health project team)
• WearDuke: Promoting Wellness Through Mobile Health Technology in a College Student Population (poster by Christine Wang, Sarah Bond, Shrey Majmudar, Nathan Parikh and Sabrina Pin from the Enabling Precision Health and Medicine project team)

Explore the Virtual Showcase

See more posters as well as team profiles, presentations, videos, websites and more from the 2020-2021 project teams in the Fortin Foundation Bass Connections Virtual Showcase. Here are just a few examples of what teams worked on this year:

• Designing an immersive art installation and digital StoryMaps to visualize sea level rise along the North Carolina coast
• Piloting an accessible mental health support for college students through DukeLine, an anonymous textline connecting students to trained peer coaches
• Supporting efforts to scale up energy access by developing algorithms to detect and map energy infrastructure across diverse geographies
• Ensuring children in North Carolina have access to healthy food through recommendations for implementing the North Carolina Early Childhood Action Plan
• Understanding the genetics of hypoxia tolerance and its implications for human, animal and ecosystem health
• Investigating substance use, mental illness and recidivism in Durham in partnership with the Durham Crisis Intervention Team Collaborative, Duke Health and Lincoln Community Health Center
• Examining barriers to women’s mobility, employment and empowerment in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia
• Exploring the impact of the pandemic on student learning at Duke and beyond
• Testing implementation strategies to reduce hypertension disparities and improve population health in Durham County

Learn More

• Browse the 2021 Fortin Foundation Bass Connections Virtual Showcase.
• Meet the winners of the 2021 Bass Connections Student Research Awards.
• See who won the Bass Connections Leadership Award and the Award for Outstanding Mentorship.