It’s Not Too Late to Join a 2026-2027 Bass Connections Project Team

More than twenty 2026-2027 project teams are now recruiting additional student team members to begin work in Fall 2026.

Students may apply to up to three project teams using our online application. The deadline to apply is June 14 at 11:59 p.m. EST.

Bass Connections project teams bring together faculty, postdocs, graduate students, undergraduates and external partners to tackle complex societal challenges in interdisciplinary research teams. Teams generally work together over nine to 12 months, and students receive academic credit for participating.

Please note that spots on these teams are limited because most positions were filled during the main application cycle last spring. Students interested in applying for a Bass Connections project team during the main application cycle will be able to explore 2027-2028 project teams in January 2027.

Eligibility

All current Duke undergraduate students and incoming and current Duke graduate students are eligible to apply. DKU students may only apply if they will be studying at Duke for at least one semester during the 2026-2027 academic year.

Incoming first-year undergraduate students and students who have already accepted a spot on a 2026-2027 Bass Connections team are not eligible to apply.

Check out Student FAQs to learn more about eligibility and preview the application.

Project Teams Recruiting Students

Please visit the project team pages linked below and read the project descriptions carefully to learn about the unique opportunities available on each team. Many teams are seeking students with specific backgrounds or skills. Several teams are seeking graduate student project managers.

Project teams offer course credit and last for two semesters. Check out how project teams work and Student FAQs to learn more.

Activism, Music, and the Rosetta Reitz Archive

• This team is seeking 1-2 additional students; all current Duke undergraduate students and current and incoming graduate students may apply
• Preference for students interested in archives, cultural studies, labor studies and/or feminist studies
• Project manager opportunity available (paid); preference for applicants with experience running events, managing workflows and organizing the materials of a complex project

In 1979, the writer, activist and record producer Rosetta Reitz started Rosetta Records, the first and only record label specializing in women’s jazz and blues music, dedicated to re-releasing forgotten and underappreciated recordings. Active into the 1990s, Rosetta Records released 19 albums with songs performed by over 90 women. The team will explore and practice visual storytelling techniques, close reading and archival analysis to build the historical context for further understanding Reitz’s life and work.

Asteroid Science: A Tool for Planetary Defense, Law and Policy

• This team is seeking 1-2 additional students; all current and incoming graduate students may apply
• Preference for students studying law or public policy with interests or background in risk governance/disaster policy, national security or global governance, technology regulation/commercial space policy, ethics, science communication, legal and policy research and/or white paper or memo writing

Near-Earth objects such as asteroids and meteors pose rare but serious risks to Earth, satellites and future lunar activity, yet current detection systems often provide limited warning and face technical, operational and policy constraints. This project team will develop an integrated asteroid impact risk-assessment tool by combining observational techniques, uncertainty modeling and impact simulations with legal and policy analysis. Students will work across science, engineering, law and policy to improve planetary defense readiness and help translate asteroid risk data into actionable guidance for warnings, liability and global coordination.

Community for Antepartum Patients (CAP): Establishing an Inpatient Model for Group Prenatal Care

• This team is seeking 1-2 additional students; all current Duke undergraduate students and current and incoming graduate students may apply
• Preference for students interested in maternal and reproductive health and previous experience working with patients in volunteer or clinical settings

Preterm birth, particularly following preterm prelabor rupture of membranes, often requires pregnant patients to remain hospitalized for extended periods, disrupting social support and increasing stress. This project expands a group-based care model on Duke Hospital’s antepartum unit that brings patients together for weekly sessions focused on education, community-building and coping strategies. The team will also study how these sessions affect patient experience, pregnancy outcomes and racial disparities in preterm birth.

Community-Engaged Approaches to Climate Change and Mental Health

• This team is seeking 1-2 additional students; all current Duke undergraduate students and current and incoming graduate students may apply
• Preference for students interested in climate and human health

Climate change poses substantial threats to mental health, particularly for historically marginalized communities that experience disproportionate environmental, economic and social impacts. This project team will develop a community-engaged research program in Durham County by reviewing academic literature, exploring the relationship between climate change and mental health and interviewing local community partners. Through this work, students will help build a foundation for long-term partnerships that support culturally responsive, community-informed approaches to improving mental health equity in the face of climate change.

Connections to the Past: An Exploration of Juneteenth

• This team is seeking 3-5 additional students; all current Duke undergraduate students and current and incoming graduate students may apply
• Preference for students interested in cultural psychology and Black history
• Summer work available 

This project examines how Juneteenth celebrations shape Black Americans’ understandings of freedom, identity and belonging. The team will conduct ethnographic fieldwork at Juneteenth events across North Carolina and analyze interviews alongside historical themes identified in 1930s Ex-Slave Narratives. The study will examine how collective memory of slavery and emancipation informs the evolving cultural meaning of Juneteenth.

Connecting Amphibians and Reptiles: An Ecology + Rights Approach

• This team is seeking 5 or more additional students; all current Duke undergraduate students and current and incoming graduate students may apply
• Preference for students interested in fieldwork, data analysis and/or research ethics; GIS and R coding skills are a plus

The Triangle region faces growing threats to biodiversity as rapid development fragments habitats and limits wildlife movement across forests, wetlands and mixed-use landscapes. This project team will combine field ecology, spatial modeling and ethical inquiry to study how amphibians and reptiles move through Duke Forest and neighboring conservation lands, using field surveys, telemetry and GIS analysis to refine wildlife corridor models and identify opportunities to improve ecological connectivity. The team will also explore how a Rights of Nature framework, developed in collaboration with humanities scholars, Indigenous leaders and community partners, can inform more inclusive and ethically grounded approaches to conservation and land stewardship.

Critical Minerals Nexus: Geosciences, Engineering and Policy

• This team is seeking 3-5 additional students; all current Duke undergraduate students and current and incoming graduate students may apply

Critical minerals such as lithium, cobalt and rare earth elements are essential to clean energy, technology, medicine, communications and national defense, yet their supply chains are increasingly strained and raise significant environmental and social concerns. This project team will collaborate with the Duke Critical Minerals Hub to develop a Critical Minerals Index, an interactive data platform that integrates geoscience, engineering, environmental and policy information across the mineral life cycle. Through data analysis, interviews, surveys and site visits, students will examine the trade-offs among energy security, technological innovation, environmental impact and social justice.

Exploring Retirement Realities Among Durham's Hispanic Adults

• This team is seeking 5 or more additional students; all current Duke undergraduate students and current and incoming graduate students may apply
• Preference for students interested in social justice, personal finance, behavioral science and/or community-engaged research, with backgrounds in economics, finance, psychology, sociology, anthropology, political science, international comparative studies or public policy; fluency in Spanish is a plus

This project will examine how Hispanic adults in Durham understand and prepare for retirement in a financial system that increasingly relies on individual savings plans. Using behavioral science and mixed methods, including interviews, surveys and a behavioral audit of existing products, the team will identify barriers and opportunities in retirement planning for this population. Findings will inform the co-design of a financial product or service that local institutions could use to better support Hispanic residents approaching or entering retirement. 

EXTEND Toolbox: An Adapted Solution for Nigerian Sickle Cell Care

• This team is seeking 1-2 additional students; all current Duke undergraduate students and current and incoming graduate students may apply
• Preference for students interested in computer science and online platform development

Nigeria has the highest global burden of sickle cell disease, yet many clinicians lack easy access to usable treatment guidelines in clinical settings. This project team will adapt an existing U.S.-based clinical decision tool to create the EXTEND Toolbox, a digital resource designed to support guideline-based sickle cell care in Nigeria. Working with clinical partners, the team will analyze implementation data, refine clinical algorithms and develop a prototype for testing with Nigerian healthcare providers.

Fostering Climate Resilience Through Education and Arts

• This team is seeking 5 or more additional students; all current Duke undergraduate students and current and incoming graduate students may apply
• Preference for students interested in using art, storytelling and performance to foster conversations about climate

This project expands the Ready, Set, Resilience education program, which uses nature-based storytelling, puppetry and arts programming to help middle school students build personal, social and ecological resilience to climate challenges. The team will collaborate with teachers and community partners to develop puppet performances, support classroom activities and organize public storytelling events. They will also evaluate the program’s impact on student learning and community engagement around resilience.

Ignite: Evaluating Impact of STEM Design and Mentorship in Durham

• This team is seeking 3-5 additional students; all current Duke undergraduate students and current and incoming graduate students may apply
• Preference for students interested in education outreach programs, data science or psychology

Durham sits at the center of North Carolina’s Research Triangle but access to high-quality, hands-on STEM learning remains uneven across Durham Public Schools. This project team will evaluate the Ignite program, a human-centered engineering design initiative developed by Duke Engineering and the Museum of Life and Science, to understand how repeated participation influences students’ engineering identity, resilience and STEM confidence. Findings will inform improvements to the program and contribute to research on informal STEM education.

Indigenous Environmental Justice and Fossil Fuel Infrastructure

• This team is seeking 3-5 additional students; all current Duke undergraduate students and current and incoming graduate students may apply
• Preference for students interested in environmental justice, Indigenous studies, history, or energy justice

Indigenous environmental justice emphasizes sovereignty and meaningful participation in decisions affecting Indigenous lands, yet it remains understudied in higher education. This project team will examine community perceptions of natural gas pipelines in Robeson County, North Carolina, home to the Lumbee Tribe and the largest Indigenous population in the eastern United States. Through archival research and oral histories, the team will document local perspectives on fossil fuel infrastructure and contribute to a deeper understanding of Indigenous environmental justice.

Integrated Natural Hazard Monitoring for the Kathmandu Valley

• This team is seeking 1-2 additional students; all current Duke undergraduate students and current and incoming graduate students may apply

Nepal faces escalating risks from both earthquakes and severe air pollution, yet monitoring systems for these hazards remain limited. This project team will collaborate with Tribhuvan University through the Kathmandu Geo Lab to advance earthquake early warning capabilities and evaluate Nepal’s low-cost air quality sensor network. The team will analyze monitoring data, improve sensor performance and contribute to the design of more reliable, community-informed hazard monitoring systems.

Mapping Heat and Walkability for Duke Heat Governance

• This team is seeking 3-5 additional students; all current Duke undergraduate students and current and incoming graduate students may apply
• Preference for students interested in writing, GIS or data analysis (e.g., coding in R)

Extreme heat is an increasing climate-related risk that affects health, learning and productivity on university campuses. This project team will conduct the first campus-wide assessment of heat exposure at Duke by mapping indoor and outdoor temperatures and analyzing patterns of heat risk. Findings will inform the development of a student-authored heat action and governance plan to guide campus policies and improve thermal safety and climate resilience.

Maternal Empowerment Through Cervical Health Monitoring

• This team is seeking 1-2 additional students; all current Duke undergraduate students and current and incoming graduate students may apply
• Preference for students with background in electrical or biomedical engineering, or computer science

Subtle cervical changes that occur during late pregnancy are not well understood, and many pregnant people lack clear information about how to recognize labor progression. This project team will examine the feasibility and acceptability of using the Callascope, a speculum-free cervical imaging device developed at Duke, to document cervical changes during pregnancy. Through surveys and interviews with pregnant and recently pregnant individuals, the team will generate insights to inform future maternal health technologies and approaches to patient-centered prenatal care.

Noninvasive Neuromodulation for Addiction

• This team is seeking 1-2 additional students; all current Duke undergraduate students and current and incoming graduate students may apply
• Preference for students interested in computer science or engineering with experience using and building AI systems

This project evaluates whether repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation, a noninvasive brain stimulation technique, can help veterans with PTSD quit smoking when combined with counseling and nicotine replacement therapy. The team will assist with a randomized clinical trial examining smoking outcomes and brain circuit changes related to addiction, while also contributing to WIKIStim.org, a global database of neuromodulation research enhanced with AI tools to improve access to evidence. Together, these efforts aim to address tobacco-related health disparities among people with mental health conditions and expand knowledge about neuromodulation treatments.

Open Access Academic Publishing Using Game Theory and Graph Theory

• This team is seeking 5 or more additional students; all current Duke undergraduate students and current and incoming graduate students may apply
• Preference for students interested in software engineering, algorithm design, machine learning, financial modeling, open science, academic publishing and/or startup operations
• Project manager opportunities available 

This project expands Liberata, an open-source platform designed to address major structural problems in academic publishing, including inequitable credit systems, inefficient peer review and the lack of incentives for replication studies. The team will develop a share-based model that replaces traditional authorship order with measurable contribution shares that can be exchanged for peer review and replication services. By combining platform development, algorithm design and AI tools, the project aims to create a more transparent, fair and sustainable ecosystem for scholarly communication.

Reproductive Care Post-Dobbs

• This team is seeking 1-2 additional students; all current and incoming Duke graduate students may apply
• Preference for a law or MFA-EDA student to take on a paid role to help with communications and peer mentorship

After the 2022 Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, abortion bans across many states have reshaped access to reproductive health care and the experiences of clinicians providing it. This project documents these changes through a growing national oral history archive of interviews with frontline reproductive health providers. The team will expand the archive to include more states and follow up with previously interviewed clinicians to understand how legal changes continue to affect care, providers and patients.

Shaping Tomorrow’s Healthcare Workforce

• This team is seeking 1-2 additional students; all current and incoming graduate students may apply
• Preference for students interested in healthcare, workforce development, evaluation and health policy
• Project manager opportunity available (paid)

Durham Public Schools, Durham Technical Community College and Duke Health launched the Durham Early College of Health Sciences to address local healthcare workforce shortages by preparing students for in-demand health careers. This project team will evaluate the program’s early impacts on students, families and health system stakeholders while developing frameworks to measure its long-term return on investment as a workforce development strategy. The goal is to inform sustainable models for building a diverse, community-based healthcare workforce.

SOS (Stories of Strength): Digital Storytelling for HIV Prevention

• This team is seeking 1-2 additional students; all current Duke undergraduate students and current and incoming graduate students may apply
• Project manager opportunity available (paid)

This project develops and tests a digital storytelling campaign that elevates the voices and experiences of Black community members affected by HIV. The team will work with storytellers to create short audio or video narratives and share them through social media to spark dialogue, reduce stigma and increase awareness of HIV prevention and care. The project will also evaluate how these stories influence audience engagement and public health communication.

Storytelling Our Latinx Community and the Fandango de Durham

• This team is seeking 3-5 additional students; all current Duke undergraduate students and current and incoming graduate students may apply
• Preference for students interested in community-led storytelling initiatives and community-engaged work that helps bridge the gap between the university and the local community; fluency in Spanish is a plus

This project documents and uplifts the cultural traditions of Durham’s Latinx community, focusing on the son jarocho music and dance practices carried by the Veracruz diaspora in North Carolina. Students will collect oral histories and help build an audio-visual archive while collaborating with community partners to produce the 2027 Fandango de Durham festival. Together, these efforts highlight storytelling, music and community celebration as ways to understand and share Latinx cultural life in the region.

Tracing the Roots of Food Access: Local Communities to Schools

• This team is seeking 3-5 additional students; all current Duke undergraduate students, particularly seniors, and current and incoming graduate students may apply

This project examines how working conditions for school food workers influence the success of school meal programs and local food sourcing efforts. Building on a national USDA-funded study, the team will analyze survey and focus group data from school food workers and conduct interviews with Durham Public Schools staff to identify strategies that improve workforce well-being and program participation. The findings will inform efforts to strengthen school meal programs, support local agriculture and address food insecurity in Durham.

Learn More

• Explore how project teams work.
• Consult our Student FAQs.
• Learn about the project team experience through stories from students.