The Currency of Hope

As a high school student in South Carolina, Michelle Schultze had certain standards when exploring colleges: a strong economics department, an established Russian language program and the chance to study political science with a public policy angle. She found her trifecta — as well as a pathway to her future — at Duke. 

Though she took Spanish throughout high school, Schultze began teaching herself Russian, and her mother’s native language, Greek, during her junior year while remote learning during the pandemic. “I had nothing but time on my hands during lockdown, and learning languages made me feel like I was making the best use of it,” she explains. As her skills improved, so did her interest in Russian. “Though challenging, it started to feel accessible and viable as a career skill, like something I could pursue in college.”

She enrolled in Russian 111 the spring semester of her first year and immediately felt welcomed by the faculty. What began as a minor quickly became a major in Russian Language and Culture. “I’ve always received support from my professors both in and outside the classroom,” she shares. “They encouraged me to pursue the Critical Language Scholarship, which let me study in Kyrgyzstan and build a confidence and skill set that I wouldn’t have been able to otherwise — that experience really defined my Russian education.” 

Back on campus, Schultze co-launched a weekly Russian conversation hour, where students and faculty gather for casual discussions around language, culture and current events. One event in particular — the war in Ukraine — deeply impacted the department and Schultze’s academic interests. “Everyone in the Slavic Department had a personal connection to this event happening halfway around the world, and it suddenly felt very immediate and close to home.”

Also majoring in Economics, with her subfield in development economics, Schultze found her future direction in a Global Russia class her sophomore year. “We had a week focused on economics of the Soviet world, and a group of graduate students presented projects that combined two of my primary interests in a way I’d never seen before,” she recalls. 

The research came from the Duke Economic Analytics Laboratory (DEAL), led by Charles Becker, and she immediately applied to be part of the research team. Her first project focused on health policies in Uzbekistan after a change in the country’s leadership. “We had a researcher on the ground compiling and transcribing all this data, and I got to dive into the analysis.” 

That same year, she was part of a Bass Connections project focused on universal healthcare. Performing policy coding analysis for the project, it was a turning point for Schultze. “I realized that improving healthcare systems is one of the most effective ways to raise the standard of living for a huge number of people.”

Research continued her junior year with DEAL and Peter Devine, who was a White House Fellow in need of information on whether or not Ukraine should open an airport in the middle of a war. 

“It was a challenging question to tackle, so I ultimately settled on a comparative methodology analyzing changes in passenger versus cargo air traffic,” she explains. “I found that, in the context of reopening airports during conflict, prioritizing passenger transport has greater associated benefits. Facilitating the movement of people via air proved to be more critical than cargo in supporting recovery and connectivity during wartime.” 

The work was eventually published, and her time with DEAL has solidified her research path. Schultze won’t be going far after graduation. She’s staying at Duke to complete the 4+1 MAE program. Her goal is to eventually apply to development economist positions with global financial institutions and maybe positions in Kyrgyzstan with the Peace Corps. 

“There’s work to be done on the development economics front everywhere, and my skillset allows me to help to create and evaluate policy solutions, especially in the Russian-speaking world,” she says. “After the war ends, there will be a massive reconstruction challenge — and I want to be part of the solution.”