The Duke Financial Economics Center (DFE) has announced the recipients of its 2024-2025 Leadership Award: seniors Caelyn DeSouza, Fernando Haddad, and Claire Rubenstein, who will all graduate in May. Since 2011, the award has been bestowed annually to seniors who have made outstanding contributions to the Duke undergraduate finance community. DeSouza, Haddad, and Rubenstein were selected for their wide-ranging involvement in finance and business activities and the wholeheartedness with which they approached them.“… read more about Three Seniors Honored with Duke Financial Economics Center’s Leadership Award »
Each year, Duke University awards Benenson Awards in the Arts, which provide funding for arts-centered projects proposed by undergraduates, including graduating seniors. This year, the Student Arts Award Committee awarded prizes to fifteen students for creative projects spanning film, theater, creative writing, music, dance, and visual art. read more about Announcing the 2025 Benenson Award Winners »
Blue Devils fans are still making sense of Duke’s stunning late-game loss to Houston in what was a wild Final Four game.But for some fans of men’s college hoops, predicting this season’s nail-biters, closest contests — and even the biggest blowouts — was a worthwhile competition in itself.In the first-ever Triangle Sports Analytics competition, 15 teams of undergraduates and master’s students from Duke, UNC and NC State competed to make predictions about the 2024/25 ACC basketball season, and in a way most armchair fans don… read more about College Basketball Can Be Hard to Predict. That Didn’t Stop These Student Data Whizzes From Trying »
On April 2, President Donald Trump held his long-promised “Liberation Day,” during which he took to the Rose Garden of the White House and announced a vast swath of tariffs that he will be implementing. Trump’s “Liberation Day” moves saw the introduction of a 10% tariff on all imported goods, and additional import taxes—of varying degrees—placed on 60 other countries.The U.S. and global markets have already started to feel the impact of Trump’s tariffs, with theU.S. stock market taking the worst hit thus far. At the… read more about Is the U.S. Heading Into a Recession Amid Trump’s Tariffs? Duke Economist Discusses »
Duke University has awarded distinguished professorships to 31 faculty members and will recognize them in a ceremony at the Washington Duke Inn on May 14.“I am very proud to recognize these outstanding faculty colleagues with distinguished professorships,” said President Vincent E. Price. “Through their extraordinary scholarship and teaching, they are advancing solutions, inventions and cures that will uplift humankind and make a lasting difference in the world.”Distinguished professorships honor faculty who are well-… read more about Six Trinity Faculty Members Among Duke's New Distinguished Professors »
While March is celebrated as Women’s History Month, 2025 also marks a milestone: the 50th anniversary of the first United Nations World Conference on Women, held in June 1975 in Mexico City. The first in a series of four U.N. women’s conferences — which included Copenhagen in 1980, Nairobi in 1985 and Beijing in 1995 — the 1975 conference is considered by scholars to have been “a watershed moment.” Yet, few know about it. Professor of History Jocelyn Olcott wrote the book — or one of the books — on this landmark event… read more about Revisiting a Landmark in Global Feminism: Jocelyn Olcott Discusses the 50th Anniversary of the U.N. International Women’s Year Conference »
Conducted by Jon Hilsenrath, a former Wall Street Journal economics writer and visiting scholar at Duke University, in partnership with the Duke Department of Economics, the survey gathers predictions from former Federal Reserve officials and staff about economic indicators and anticipated actions by the U.S. central bank. A new survey of former Federal Reserve officials and staff members has found growing concern about economic risks including recession, stagflation and higher inflation. Respondents to… read more about New Survey of Former Federal Reserve Officials and Staff Reflects Concerns About the Economy »
A new survey produced in partnership with the Duke Department of Economics is offering informed predictions from former Federal Reserve officials and staff on how the central bank may act to impact monetary policy. The results of the new survey will be released in advance of the March, July, September and December meetings of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy body. The survey will provide advance insight into the Summary of Economic Projections, the FOMC’s own… read more about New Survey Partnership Offers Federal Reserve Insights »
“If you haven't failed it means that you aren't trying hard enough.” When he was in graduate school, Charlie Becker had a recurring nightmare. He was at a conference, getting ready to present his first professional paper. As he walked up to the stage, he found that it was not a dingy seminar room, but a packed auditorium at Carnegie Hall. An emcee beckoned him forward and announced, "And now, Mr. Becker will play for us on the piano!" [spoiler alert: Charlie Becker does not play the piano or any other… read more about Freedom to Fail: Applying Past Failures to the Present »
Leadership takes energy. In Duke junior Tyler Ratcliffe’s case, leadership is in energy, the field that powers our world.“I’m an energy evangelist. Energy is the great challenge of our lifetime,” he said.Ratcliffe has led multiple efforts to showcase to his fellow students that there are more career options to contribute to climate and sustainability than they might expect.“The energy and climate ventures and entrepreneurship community at Duke is vibrant and growing, and I want more students to know about… read more about Climate Pathfinders: Tyler Ratcliffe Brings the Energy »
Seven Trinity College of Arts & Sciences faculty members have been awarded funding from the Undergraduate Program Enhancement Fund. Backed by Duke’s Provost’s Office, the fund supports innovative proposals that enhance undergraduate experiential learning.Owen Astrachan, Professor of the Practice of Computer Science, will design a course called AI, Algorithms, and APIs: Great Ideas of Computer Science (Redux). He envisions the course as an alternative introduction to the major, with the goal of making it the one course… read more about Seven Trinity Faculty Awarded Funding to Enhance Undergraduate Programs »
How do we foster collaboration in a divided world? Duke faculty are exploring innovative ways to bridge gaps — through sociology, international youth camps and cultural partnerships in Durham. (Design by Shaun King/Trinity Communications) In an increasingly divided world, the need for civil discourse and strategies to bridge perspectives has become a central topic of discussion — not only at Duke but worldwide. At Duke, several current initiatives aim at fostering inclusive… read more about Fostering Connections Across Differences: Three Faculty Explore Unlikely Collaborations »
On July 1, Duke will become the new editorial home of Demography, the flagship journal of the Population Association of America, for the next three years. Co-editors leading Demography are Hedy Lee, James B. Duke Distinguished Professor of Sociology; M. Giovanna Merli, Professor of Public Policy, Sociology and Global Health; and Marcos Rangel, Associate Professor of Public Policy and Economics. A multidisciplinary team of Duke faculty, along with faculty from other top-tier research institutions, will serve as Deputy… read more about Duke Becomes New Home for "Demography" Journal »
Three Duke alumni and a senior have been named Schwarzman Scholars, a program that funds one year of graduate study in Beijing.From an initial pool of nearly 5,000 applicants, they are among approximately 150 Scholars chosen from around the world.Anya Button, Yutao Gong, Hope Jackson, and Jie (Vincent) Liu will develop international leadership skills through the fully funded one-year master’s degree program in global affairs, designed to enable future leaders of the 21st century to engage with China.Scholars are selected… read more about Three Duke Alumni and One Senior Named Schwarzman Scholars for Graduate Study in China »
Yi (Daniel) Xu, professor of Economics, has been awarded the 2025 Robert E. Lucas Jr. Prize for the most interesting paper in the area of Dynamic Economics published in the Journal of Political Economy in the last two years.The biannual Lucas Prize was established in 2016 to celebrate Lucas’s seminal contributions to economics and his Phoenix Prize award.Xu, along with co-authors Chris Edmond (University of Melbourne) and Virgiliu Midrigan (New York University), have been awarded for “How Costly are… read more about Daniel Yi Xu Awarded 2025 Robert E. Lucas Jr. Prize »
