Centers & Institutes

Deep Partnership. High-Impact Results.

Over the last decade, Duke Engineering has made significant partnerships with organizations that share our vision of a better world through innovation.

Among our partners we gratefully count the family of Clayton M. Christensen, the thinker behind “disruptive innovation”—as well as esteemed private research enterprises such as Underwriters Laboratories, and major public funding agencies like NIH, NSF and DARPA.

Signature Themes

Quantum Computing

Uniquely, the Duke Quantum Center conducts research along the entire stack of the quantum information system. Since 2007, DQC members have been awarded over $170 million in funding and performed over $100 million in contracted government work.

NSF Software-Tailored Architecture for Quantum Codesign

STAQ is a Duke-led, seven-university, $15 million collaboration working to build the world’s first practical quantum computer.

Quantum Systems Accelerator

Duke is one of 14 U.S. institutions in QSA—a five-year, $115 million U.S. government effort to develop the solutions needed to harness quantum information science.

Spectator Qubit MURI

Led by Duke, this US Army Research Office Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative received $9 million to investigate the spectator qubit approach.

Accelerating Innovation

Christensen Family Center for Innovation

Metaphorically, CFCI at Duke is a monorail that transports new products above pitfalls on the trip from conception to the market entrance. Efforts include design sprints and outreach to aspiring entrepreneurs, on campus and off.

Duke Engineering Institute for Enterprise Engineering

Leverages Duke’s strengths in advanced computing, business education and more into a nimble range of graduate-level offerings that produce high-impact leaders who transform organizations.

GUIde 7 Consortium for Aeroelasticity

A government, university and industry (GUI) consortium for developing solutions to bladed disk vibration.

Materials Discovery & Development

Center for Extreme Materials

The center’s mission is to advance fundamental knowledge in materials having extraordinary performance in extreme environments.

Meta-Imaging MURI

Led by Duke, this US Air Force Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative utilizes metasurfaces to detect additional degrees of freedom of the light field and process the information quickly—all while reducing the size and weight of imaging systems.

Center for Metamaterials and Integrated Plasmonics

Duke CMIP explores the capabilities and limitations of electromagnetic metamaterials.

Duke Materials Initiative

Providing strategic leadership through a distinct combination of interdisciplinary expertise, research focus and paradigm-shifting graduate degrees.

Next-Generation Computing

Agile Waveform Design for Communication Networks in Contested Environments UCE

A five-year, $5 million a US Air Force University Center of Excellence to develop methodologies for novel waveform design and optimization techniques that are both agile to changing network dynamics and robust to adversaries in contested environments, with provable bounds on performance.

NSF Alliance for Identity-Inclusive Computing Education

AIICE is a $10 million NSF INCLUDES project aimed at developing solutions that increase the enrollment, retention, and completion rates of students from groups that are historically underrepresented in computing.

NSF Edge Computing Leveraging Next-Generation Networks

Duke-led ATHENA brings together teams from seven universities to transform systems from mobile devices to networks. It is committed to cultivating a diverse next generation of edge computing and network leaders whose core values are driven by ethics and fairness in AI.

Fitzpatrick Institute for Photonics

Based at Duke and focused research and training in light-based technologies for quantum, electronic and biomedical applications.

Personal, Environmental & Population Health

Center for Advanced Genomic Technologies

Duke CAGT is a team of world-leading engineers, scientists, and physicians working to adapt advanced genomic technologies, to unravel disease biology and discover new drug targets to catalyze a more robust biotechnology enterprise.

NIH Center for Biomolecular and Tissue Engineering

Duke CBTE coordinates interdisciplinary discovery and training across protein, cellular and tissue engineering.

IGVF Characterization Center

A generator of data on how genetic variation impacts gene regulation and phenotypes. Supported by an $8.6 million award from the NHGRI Impact of Genomic Variation on Function Consortium.

UL Global Air Pollution and Health

A $3.6 million initiative with Underwriters Laboratories investigating the human health impacts of airborne pollution—including a project focused on wildfire impacts in California.

DARPA Mapping Epigenetic Memory of Exposure to Observe

Developing a genetic test for exposure to weapons of mass destruction. MEMENTO is supported by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

WaSH-AID: Water, Sanitation, Hygiene and Infectious Disease

Facilitating development and deployment of sustainable public health solutions for developing regions across the globe. Sponsored in part by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

PreMiEr ERC: Precision Microbiome Engineering

An NSF Engineering Research Center developing diagnostic tools and engineering approaches that prevent harmful and encourage beneficial microrganisms in the built environment. Funded by a five-year, $26 million grant.

Resilient Systems & Risk

NSF INFRAMES: Assessing Materials for Environmental Sustainability

A five-year, $1.6 million NSF AccelNET program to create a global network to answer questions about the environmental impact of novel materials.

Duke Center on Risk

A multidisciplinary hub to develop technology and policies to confront emerging societal risks—including climate change, pandemic disease, cyber‐attacks, financial shocks and terrorism.

Duke RESILE

A Center for Risk spin-out organized to intersect with business and advance climate risk and resilience research.