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Responding to the growing urgency of global conflict and humanitarian crises, Bass Connections launched a pop-up theme in 2024-2025 focused on geopolitical conflict and humanitarian response. Developed in partnership with the Provost’s Initiative on the Middle East, the theme brought together interdisciplinary teams to grapple with some of the most complex and consequential challenges of our time, including escalating conflicts in the Middle East and around the world.
During the 2024-2025 academic year, nine pop-up teams investigated questions of war, displacement, recovery and justice from a wide range of disciplinary perspectives — from public health and engineering to religious studies and political science. While diverse in method and focus, the projects shared a commitment to centering the human dimensions of conflict and imagining more just and sustainable responses.
The teams presented their work at the 2025 Bass Connections Showcase alongside more than 70 other project teams, demonstrating how collaborative, cross-disciplinary inquiry can deepen understanding and generate meaningful global impact. Students also built a sense of community across project teams by participating in a shared works-in-progress event, hosting a trivia night and engaging in collective reflection on their work, exploring intellectual and personal connections that extended beyond individual projects.
By the Numbers
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Team Summaries
Diaspora, Exile and Interreligious Dialogue
Team leaders: Sanford School of Public Policy (Abdullah Antepli), Divinity School (Peter Casarella, Polly Ha), History (Malachi Hacohen)
Student participation: 4 undergraduate students, 5 graduate students
Community partners: Katholische Akademie, Berlin; the International Network for Interreligious Research and Education (INIRE)
Geographical focus: Israel and Palestine
This team confronted one of the most polarizing issues in global politics — the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — by recovering a long history of shared religious and cultural narratives. Drawing on over two millennia of Abrahamic traditions with a particular eye to the themes of exile and diaspora, the team fostered a space for empathy and civil discourse.
Students and faculty from various religious, national and academic backgrounds explored both traditional religious texts and contemporary theory to uncover opportunities for interfaith dialogue. The team’s efforts culminated in an international conference in Berlin, co-hosted with the Katholische Akademie and the International Network for Interreligious Research and Education (INIRE). Essays co-written by team members will be published in both an online journal and a forthcoming book.
In an interview exploring the team’s work, team leader Malachi Hacohen shared insights about the importance of student-led inquiry and the value of multiple perspectives: “The larger international group opened the possibility for a more expansive and diverse research project than originally envisioned… It also made it clear the project will have a global life after this year.”
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Evidence-Based Humanitarian Aid Delivery in South Sudan
Team leader: School of Law (Mara Revkin)
Student participation: 6 undergraduate students, 11 graduate students
Community partners: University of Washington: Political Science (Gabriella Levy); International Organization for Migration in South Sudan (IOM)
Geographical focus: South Sudan
In partnership with the United Nation’s International Organization for Migration (IOM), this team worked to make humanitarian aid delivery in South Sudan more effective and equitable.
Led by Mara Revkin, winner of the 2025 Bass Connections Leadership Award, the team analyzed data from a large-scale household survey to refine a novel index measuring six dimensions of fragility: economic, environmental, human, political-legal, security and societal. Using this evidence-based framework, they aimed to help humanitarian and development actors allocate resources more efficiently across communities affected by conflict and displacement.
Students collaborated with faculty across law, global health, economics and environmental policy and shared their findings with the U.S. State Department and with IOM in Washington, D.C. Their forthcoming Duke-IOM report will offer concrete recommendations for data-driven humanitarian programming.
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Humanitarian Impacts of War in Gaza: Shelter, Water and Sanitary Solutions
Team leaders: School of Medicine: Neurosurgery (David Hasan), Nicholas School of the Environment: Environmental Social Systems (Erika Weinthal)
Student participation: 5 undergraduate students, 9 graduate students
Community partners: Clean Shelter
Geographical focus: Gaza
This team contributed to humanitarian relief in Gaza by partnering with Clean Shelter, a grassroots NGO co-founded by an Israeli and a Palestinian woman. The organization delivers critical water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) infrastructure in Gaza, where the need remains urgent amid ongoing destruction.
Students took on real-world roles in grant writing, media strategy and humanitarian technology. Their efforts helped Clean Shelter secure U.S. fiscal sponsorship, vastly expanding its fundraising capacity. They also organized a fundraising tour in Durham and collaborated with engineering students on desalination and shelter solutions.
As highlighted in Duke Engineering News, this partnership demonstrates the power of experiential learning to address global crises through innovation and collaboration. Clean Shelter recently visited Duke’s campus to share their work and connect with students driving humanitarian technology efforts. Their story has reached audiences worldwide, appearing in IndyWeek, The Times of Israel and Al Jazeera English.
In an interview about the team’s work, graduate student Anna Clauer shared what it meant to work in close partnership with Clean Shelter: “My experience has reinforced my interest in humanitarian work and the human health dimensions of environmental management, especially grassroots efforts that directly improve people’s livelihoods.”
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The Impact of Conflict on Gazan Children with Heart Disease
Team leaders: School of Medicine: Surgery (Rebekah Boyd, Henry Rice)
Student participation: 6 undergraduate students, 3 graduate students
Geographical focus: Gaza
Children born with congenital heart disease in Gaza have been cut off from life-saving care since the war began. Before October 2023, many received special travel permissions to cross into Israel for surgery or were treated by visiting medical teams. For two years, no children were able to leave Gaza and no surgical teams were able to enter. Since the ceasefire in October 2025, medical care for children has remained precarious.
This team worked to document the medical and emotional impact of that loss and to advocate for renewed access to care. Students analyzed medical records, conducted focus groups with Gazan families and Israeli healthcare providers, and developed policy briefs to inform humanitarian response and global health advocacy.
Their work builds on team leader Henry Rice’s broader commitment to sustaining surgical care in conflict zones, reflected in his research on surgery in war-affected regions like Sudan. Together, the team is continuing to bring global attention to the urgent need for life-saving treatment for Gaza’s most vulnerable children.
Learning from the Middle East: Tolerance and Suffering
Team leaders: Asian and Middle Eastern Studies (Badr Badr, Mbaye Lo)
Student participation: 17 undergraduate students, 2 graduate students
Geographical focus: Middle East and North Africa
This project asks the question: Can we learn to see conflict not just as a political problem, but as a deeply human one? Focusing on humanitarian crises in the Middle East and Sudan, the team fostered civil discourse and explored the nature of suffering.
Through student-led research, guest speakers and real-time case studies, the team created a dynamic learning environment where students from diverse ideological backgrounds could engage in meaningful dialogue. They partnered with various groups, NGOs and initiatives related to the Middle East and Sudan, completing research papers and recommending strategies to strengthen peace processes and humanitarian assistance.
The team also organized several campus-wide events exploring themes of conflict, dialogue, art and cultural exchange, including hosting a group of students from Fez, Morocco, for a roundtable discussion on cross-cultural learning and the challenges of studying conflict from different perspectives.
In an interview, team leader Mbaye Lo reflected on the importance of fostering intellectual humility: “I believe that questions are more important than answers; the former help us grow and expand our imagination for new alternatives and possibilities.”
Meeting the Need for Reconstructive Surgery in Palestine
Team leaders: School of Medicine: Surgery (Pranav Haravu, Ash Patel), Gender, Sexuality and Feminist Studies (Frances Hasso), School of Medicine: Emergency Medicine (Catherine Staton)
Student participation: 12 undergraduate students, 2 graduate students
Community partners: Duke Global Health Institute; Guy’s & St. Thomas’ Hospitals; Al Shifa Hospital
Geographical focus: Gaza
In the wake of ongoing conflict in Gaza, this team worked on developing an actionable blueprint to address the region’s massive and growing need for reconstructive surgery. Students collaborated with surgeons, social scientists and global health experts to anticipate the long-term medical and infrastructural challenges of postwar recovery.
Using data modeling, the team projected the scale of reconstructive surgery demand, from burns and limb injuries to craniofacial trauma. The team also worked to create a customized surgical capacity assessment tool to determine what equipment, personnel and partnerships are needed to deliver this care effectively in a conflict-affected and low-resource setting. Their findings were published in The Lancet.
Their interdisciplinary, multinational collaboration included colleagues in Gaza and the U.K., and aimed to ensure that once stability returns, systems are in place to deliver life-restoring care efficiently and equitably.
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Providing Emotional Support to Children in War Zones: Gaza and the West Bank
Team leaders: Office of the Provost (Leila Chelbi), Duke Global Health Institute (Maeve Salm)
Student participation: 5 undergraduate students, 4 graduate students
Geographical focus: Gaza and the West Bank
Focused on supporting children affected by conflict, this team laid the groundwork for a pilot initiative to strengthen mental health systems in Gaza and the West Bank. Students collaborated with experts in global mental health, trauma and geopolitics to assess existing interventions and identify opportunities to improve care for children and families living through war.
Team members mapped current mental health services, analyzed evidence-based trauma interventions and assessed the landscape for implementation of the initiative. A forthcoming manuscript will synthesize their findings and offer policy recommendations. Ultimately, they hope to adapt these interventions for use in other contexts such as Syria and Yemen.
The team hosted guest speakers from Gaza, as well as professionals with experience in Haiti, Cambodia and other conflict-affected regions. These experts shared firsthand insights into the challenges and gaps in existing mental health systems and discussed strategies for building more sustainable, community-centered models of care.
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The Science of Refugee Camps
Team leaders: Statistical Science (David Banks), Sociology (James Moody)
Student participation: 15 undergraduate students, 6 graduate students
Community partners: United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees (UNHCR); United States Agency for International Development (USAID)
Geographical focus: Middle East and North and Central Africa
In the midst of growing global displacement due to conflict, climate change, infrastructure collapse and more, this project examined the complex realities of refugee camp management across the Middle East and North and Central Africa. The team investigated how data, governance and social systems intersect to support refugee communities.
Students worked with the UNHCR’s “Hive” database and interviewed camp managers to better understand the logistical challenges they face. Through this hands-on research, students compared management structures across regions, exploring what models best sustain health, safety and dignity for displaced populations.
The team’s work culminated in a closing conference at Duke on April 27, where students presented their papers ready for publication in a special issue of Chance, a journal of the American Statistical Association. They also welcomed speakers from the UNHCR, USA for UNHCR and the International Statistical Institute.
In a faculty perspective interview, team leader David Banks reflected, “We cannot hope to solve the refugee problem — it is vast. But I think statisticians, economists and sociologists have skills that can ameliorate things.”
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War and Digital Archives: The Israel-Gaza War and Beyond
Team leader: Cultural Anthropology (Rebecca Stein)
Student participation: 4 undergraduate students, 2 graduate students
Geographical focus: Israel and Palestine
This project analyzed how war is documented and remembered in the digital era, using the Israel–Gaza conflict as its central case study. Team members studied the proliferation of wartime imagery and the new role of social media as a living archive where civilians, soldiers and global investigators each contribute to how conflict is seen, recorded and understood.
The team examined both institutional and crowdsourced archives, from groups like Librarians and Archivists with Palestine to user-generated collections on platforms like Instagram and TikTok. Students explored how social media posts can function simultaneously as testimony, propaganda and legal evidence. In addition, they developed their own curated digital archives. Several members drew on this work for chapters of their theses, combining research with creative and documentary approaches.
Throughout the year, the group hosted events with scholars, artists and activists, including a campus conversation with journalist and author Nathan Thrall about his book A Day in the Life of Abed Salama. Events like these deepened the team’s reflection on how digital media continues to shape historical memory and the ethics of witnessing.
A Broader Vision for Global Engagement
The projects above are part of an ongoing imperative within Bass Connections to respond to urgent global issues through interdisciplinary, team-based research.
Previous pop-up themes have tackled challenges such as the COVID-19 pandemic, hurricane recovery and threats to democracy. The 2024-2025 focus on conflict and humanitarian crises reflects a continuing commitment to global engagement and hands-on research. Four of these teams are continuing in 2025-2026, extending their impact through sustained partnerships.
In alignment with Bass Connections’ emphasis on tackling real-world issues, the projects supported by this pop-up theme contribute to solutions as well as scholarship. As these teams continue their work, they are building bridges between disciplines, communities and cultures, as well as preparing the next generation of leaders to meet the world’s challenges with skill and empathy.