Designed to stimulate an interdisciplinary, intergenerational community of scholars, the University Scholars Program was created in 1998 by the Office of the Vice-Provost of Interdisciplinary Studies with a gift from Duke University Trustee Emerita Melinda French Gates and her husband Bill Gates, th…
As part of the University Scholars Program seminar Mohamed Noor presents on his experiences teaching a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course).
Irene Ai-Yin Liu, Ph.D. graduated from Duke University’s Department of Biology in May 2014. Irene’s dissertation, “Molecular Causes and Consequences of Sperm Competition on Agelaius Blackbirds” required frequent fieldwork trips to the Caribbean and exotic Pennsylvania, among other North American destinations to collect DNA samples from wild blackbird populations. A graduate of the University of Maryland, where she double majored in Biology and Spanish, Irene came to Duke as a University Scholar. Irene was a three time Graduate Mentor for the University Scholars Program and substantially shaped the seminars and symposia sponsored by the USP between 2008 and 2011. She has received numerous other travel grants, awards, and fellowships, including research and dissertation fellowships from the National Science Foundation, the James B. Duke fellowship, the Katherine Goodman Stern fellowship, and the Dean’s Award for Excellence in Mentoring. Irene vows to use her final year at Duke to explore North Carolina to the fullest before embarking on her next step. Here’s hoping her future home will have bike lanes, sunshine, live music, and everything else she loves about Durham.
"The Outsized Impact of Unreasonable People" -Hersh Desai "Is Pain Reasonable?" -Nikki Pelot "Unreasonable Rivers: How Extreme Events and Expert Blind Spots Shape Water Planning" -Meg Perry "Anthropological Surrealism: How Stuff Made Reason Unreasonable" -Brian Smithson
"Believing and Unbelieving in Traditional Historical Narratives" - Zach Heater "Magical Analogical Thinking: Metaphors and Illness Among the Nahuatl" -Ana Ugarte "(Un)Reasonable Convictions: Christianity, Creationism, and Evolution" -Alex Treyz
"A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism" -Julia Mikhailova "A Scientific Update to Darwinism" - Irene Liu "Avian (T)reason: The Bizarre Story of Brood Parasitism" -Eleanor Caves "The Vaccine Scare and its Influence on Decisions" -Dave Lacambacal
"Creating Flabby Bot and Other Thinking Machines" -Ben Schwab and Tamra Nebabu "Legal Reasoning: The When and How" -Hunter Bruton and Daniel Rice "A Science of Good & Evil? On The Possibility of Ethical Knowledge" - Marcus Gibson
In Tana Villafaña’s research as a graduate student at Duke, she has been working closely with scientists from the National Gallery of Art and with conservators at the North Carolina Museum of Art to develop a technique for taking non-destructive 3D images from paintings. This work, in conjunction with traditional conservation science techniques, could lead to the ability to answer historically relevant questions regarding a group of early Italian paintings in a completely non-destructive manner.
Professor Schanzer is an expert on national security and international terrorism, who will be leading a follow up discussion on former General David Petraeus’ lecture.
Keynote Address by James Reynolds, Prof. of Environmental Science and Biology The Future of Dryland Development in the Americas: “Whereof What’s Past is Prologue”
Professor Davidson’s talk is entitled “Now You See It: How the Science of Attention Can Help Us Succeed in a World of Distractions.” She gave a version of this talk recently at a private leadership workshop of 80 of the world’s most influential CEOs and CIOs, a gathering that included President William J. Clinton. She is very excited to compare the engaged, lively conversation the talk generated among world leaders with that of the University Scholars–and has promised to report back on what “the next generation” has to say on urgent matters of attention, learning, technology, and the new ways we live, work, and lead together.
Professor McLarney specializes in Arabic literature, cultural studies of the Middle East, and feminist theologies in Islam. She is currently teaching “Revolution: The Arab World” with Professor miriam cooke as well as “Human Rights in Islam” this semester. Professor McLarney’s current project, “Human Rights in Islam: Literary Hermeneutics in Contemporary Islamic Thought,” explores the emergence of human rights discourse in Islamic thought in the 20th century, with specific focus on freedom, equality, rights, and women’s emancipation as Islamic concepts. She specifically looks at how modern Islamic thought used literary methods and techniques to reinterpret classical Islamic texts and debates.
Stephen W. Smith is the former Africa editor and deputy foreign editor of Le Monde, former Africa editor at Libération, and former foreign correspondent for Radio France International and Reuters News Agency in Central and West Africa. He is also the co-author of books on Morocco, Ivory Coast, Central African Republic, DRC, Rwanda, Burundi, Somalia and South Africa, as well as of country reports (Nigeria, CAR) published by the International Crisis Group (ICG). He contributes regularly to the London Review of Books and also works as historical consultant for the film industry. Olivier Assayas’s film Carlos, which premiered in Cannes, won a Golden Globe and was nominated for two Emmy awards, is based on his research. He’s currently completing a South-African documentary, Plot for Peace, for which he also wrote the script. Professor Smith is Visiting Professor of African and African-American Studies, Cultural Anthropology and Public Policy at Duke University, where he teaches courses on “Conflict Analysis in Africa,” “Hollywood and Africa,” and “War in Africa.” He is currently teaching “Introduction to African Studies,” “War and Public Health in Africa” at Duke in Spring 2013.
Dr. Einaudi’s work deals with the science of climate change and its possible impacts. Specifically, his presentation discusses the following questions: • Is the climate changing? • Are humans responsible for climate change? • What are the impacts of climate change? • What will the changes be in the next century or so? The complexities of the Earth System, the uncertainties of its behavior and its predictability will be outlined. Climate change is a global phenomenon where all nations are involved: the relative responsibilities of developed versus developing nations will be discussed. Finally, the nature of the public debate on global warming will also be reviewed along with the interaction between scientists and policymakers.
Professor Gillespie works in political philosophy, with particular emphasis on modern continental theory and the history of political philosophy. He is the author of Hegel, Heidegger and the Ground of History, and Nihilism before Nietzsche. He is also co-editor of Nietzsche’s New Seas: Explorations in Philosophy, Aesthetics, and Politics, and Ratifying the Constitution. He has published articles on Montaigne, Hegel, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and various topics in American political thought, as well as on the relation of religion and politics.
Big data is very much a part of the current zeitgeist, and has become a buzzword in academia, business, and government. James will discuss the origins of this phenomenon, how it has changed various fields, and the challenges inherent in handling very large datasets. He will describe several active areas of research in methods for analyzing big data, as well as the limitations of these methods. Early attempts to build industries and fields around analytics are discussed. He will conclude with some thoughts on how data and analytics will shape the future of human endeavors, with a special focus on the use of mathematical models to predict future events. He suggests that there are fundamental limits to the capabilities of such models, and discuss the importance of keeping these limitations in mind as we move toward an increasingly quantitative understanding of the world .
Jodi-Renée Hyman discusses her summer enrichment project.
Ash-Girl Chapfuwa discusses her summer enrichment project.
Professor Al Goshaw speaks to Duke's University Scholars Program.
NPR's Dick Gordon, Host of "The Story" from American Public Media. A University Scholars Program Symposium
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