In Service to Communities

Duke Engineering is strengthening local and global connections through community-engaged research, transformative learning and impactful STEM outreach. Our mission is to serve society by turning innovation into action and making a lasting difference in the communities we serve.

Community-Engaged Research

The search for solutions shouldn’t happen in a vacuum. Our faculty and students design with the end user in mind, integrating community input to build trust and create more effective, holistic results.

group of women students posing outside of a pink trailer

Center for Global Women’s Health Technologies

From Durham to South America to Central Africa, GWHT collaborates with women of all ages, developing affordable health solutions for field implementation and inspiring interest in the sciences.

a women's dormatory in Coimbatore, Africa

Center for Water, Sanitation, Hygiene and Infectious Disease

Initially funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Duke University Center for WaSH-AID collaborates globally to co-design pilot demonstrations for treating blackwater, greywater, and stormwater, while also developing technologies to generate health data through wastewater.

a woman on a blanket in the rainforest

Navigating the Amazon

Duke researchers have spent decades building trust with rural Amazon communities, gaining deep insights into how the region’s evolving economy impacts the health of its people and ecosystems.

PreMiEr Engineering Research Center

Our $26 million Precision Microbiome Engineering Research Center works with local communities to understand and engineer the microbiomes in our homes, workspaces and other built environments to improve human health.

Making an Impact

Nimmi Ramanujam

Nimmi Ramanujam

Growing up in Malaysia, Nimmi Ramanujam’s prospects were limited by her gender. After a series of cancer diagnoses in Texas, she realized technology could be personal and found deeper purpose in health care, blending it with her engineering background. These experiences inspired her to establish Duke’s Center for Global Women’s Health Technologies.

Lee Ferguson

Lee Ferguson

Having built a research portfolio on using mass spectrometry to identify unknown environmental contaminants, Lee Ferguson was well-prepared when high levels of GenX were found in the Cape Fear River. Over the past several years, he has become a leading figure in the fight against PFAS contaminants in North Carolina and across the country.

Claudia Gunsch's group

Claudia Gunsch

Early in her career, Claudia Gunsch engineered microbes to tackle major environmental challenges. Now, as director of the PreMiEr Engineering Research Center, she applies that expertise to improve human health by designing built environments with complex microbiomes in mind.

Holly Leddy and SMIF

Holly Leddy

Holly Leddy leads SMIF’s outreach, engaging over 1,800 K-12 students annually through visits to local schools and community centers. A highlight is the annual Girl Scouts STEM Day@Duke, which gathers over 140 girls and their families, supported by 100+ volunteers from 40 local STEM companies.

DEID in Uganda 2024.

What is Community-Based Learning?

It’s experiential learning in the community. Students actively learn through direct, hands-on experiences. They see the issues they study firsthand, while meaningfully contributing to the analysis and solution of real-world challenges.

11000

Hours of DukeEngage Service

volunteered each year by Duke Engineering students

25%

Of Engineering Students

participate in service-learning courses

ODE Summer Design Camp – Final Presentation Event
ODE Summer Design Camp – Final Presentation Event Thursday, July 18 5:30-7pm Event description: Five teams of students presented their designs. Over the course of five weeks, each team selected a medical issue and created a prototype of a design to address the issue. The teams proudly presented their designs to a panel of judges of Duke faculty members and an audience that included family members, friends, and medical experts.

When It Comes to Outreach, It’s in the Community

Find out what Duke and partners have discovered about how to build diverse experiences for local students interested in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

STEM Outreach Programming

Duke Engineering supports a wide range of programs that work with local partners to inspire the next generation of problem-solvers. Come and take a few peeks behind the proverbial curtain.

E4USA

In the Schools

Modeled after Duke Engineering’s First-Year Design, Duke’s arm of Engineering for US All brings a hands-on design experience to students in Oxford, NC.

STEM Academy

On the Duke Campus

In summer, we bring high schoolers to the Duke campus for an immersive experience centered on engineering design through active application.

Students from the Ignite program pose with director Megan Madonna

In the World

Ignite helps middle and high school students illuminate—and solve—challenges in their home communities.

fourth grade students crowd around a small robot on the floor

Learning Coding by Building PB&Js

Adam Davidson uses a classic sandwich to teach fourth graders coding fundamentals.

image of students and faculty in the design POD for a hackathon

Middle School Hackathon

Outreach Design Education engaged students from Lowe’s Grove Middle School with the world of engineering and offered hands-on opportunities to tackle real world problems.

a young Black girl in a white science jumpsuit posing in front of a board with lots of science terms

Inspiring Students Through Nanotechnology

At Duke’s SMIF lab, local students see electron microscopes up close, and go inside our nanotech cleanrooms.

Outreach Design Education

ODE (Outreach Design Education) emphasizes hands-on design over conceptual learning to build engineering identity and spark lasting interest in STEM among local youth. Its goal is to equip students with problem-solving tools and teach them the skills to turn ideas into tangible solutions. Students learn to identify problems, understand their causes, and apply this knowledge in the lab, where they build and test devices, transforming concepts into finished products.

Valence Robotics: A FIRST® Robotics Competition team

The mission of Valence Robotics is to uplift our diverse student community through opportunities to develop into motivated leaders of science, technology, engineering, art, and math. Created for and initiated by students, our team seeks to guide members to become well-rounded industry professionals.

Explore our Programs

A Duke Engineering education leads to lives of purpose and integrity that are as rewarding as they are impactful. Click to learn more about a supportive and inclusive community that defines excellence in engineering.

Undergraduate

Solve hard problems. Have fun doing it.

Master’s

Master tomorrow’s challenges.

PhD

Prepare for a high-impact career.

News from Duke Engineering

Dive into the latest from Duke Engineering: where ambitious discovery fuels societal impact, and our students, faculty and staff continually push the boundaries of what’s possible in the world through insightful engineering.

9/4 Pratt School of Engineering

Duke’s Soft Matter Summer

Between The Young Investigators Workshop and Duke Soft Matter Day, the summer saw collaborations in the field that spanned North Carolina ahead of ISMC 2024.

Upcoming Events

Join us for a dynamic lineup of upcoming events, where we delve into groundbreaking research, foster collaboration, and celebrate the spirit of innovation. Don’t miss out on these opportunities to connect and be inspired.

Explore More

Connect with Duke Engineering to become a part of our ongoing journey of innovation and discovery.