May 16
Girl Scouts STEM Day@Duke
Girl Scouts STEM Day @ Duke is an event offered through a partnership between Triangle Women in STEM, the Pratt School of Engineering, and the Coastal Pines Girl Scouts. The […]
8:00 am – 8:00 am
Community-Based Innovation
Engineering in Service to Society
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 with the communities we serve.
Upcoming Events
Community-Engaged Research & Design
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.
PFAS and Heavy Metal Contamination in North Carolina Oyster Populations
This research, in partnership with Coastal Carolina Riverwatch, focuses on detecting PFAS and heavy metals in farm-raised and wild-caught oyster populations within the White Oak River Basin while elevating community voices and educating coastal areas.
Community-Led Research in the Chowan River and Albemarle Sound
This research grant explores community-led validation of a remote sensing and deep learning approach to identify cyanobacteria harmful algal blooms and toxins in the Chowan River and tris in the tributaries of the Albemarle Sound.
Digital Biomarker Discovery Project
Digital biomarkers are digitally collected data that are transformed into indicators of health outcomes. The purpose of the DBDP is to make discovering digital biomarkers more accessible. From the input of wearable sensor data to the development of machine learning algorithms, we provide an open source software resource for the digital biomarker community.
Community-Based Learning
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.
BME 462L: Design for the Developing World
Student teams will apply the engineering design process to create community-driven focused solutions for global health applications. The course will build students’ ability to understand the relationship between global health and engineering while constructing and testing prototype solutions to design challenges from global partners. Students will collaboratively build solutions driven by global partnerships and human-centered design to better unite theory, application, and reflection through a global lens.
EGR 190L/790: Engineering Design in the Community Context
The course is an overview of engineering design with a focus on gaining hands on experience and building skills that will support positive impact in a community setting.
DESIGNTK 540: Design Ethics & Social Innovation
In this course, students use methodologies and frameworks related to design ethics, design justice, participatory and co-design, and social innovation while completing a semester-long innovation project focused on a single client.
STEM Outreach
Duke Engineering supports a wide range of programs that work with local partners to inspire the next generation of problem-solvers.
Duke Research in Engineering Program
The Duke Research in Engineering Program (DukeREP) is a 7-week summer research program hosted by the Biomedical Engineering Department (BME) for high school students with an interest in science, engineering, and research. As part of DukeREP, high school students learn the fundamentals of engineering and BME and are paired with Duke BME PhD student mentors to complete a lab-based research project.
Design Hackathon for Middle School Students
In partnership with Durham Public Schools, students and their teachers participate in an introductory engineering design activity and use rapid prototyping tools (3-D printing, laser cutting, and Arduino programming) to design and create devices.
Girl Scouts STEM Day @ Duke University
Girl Scouts STEM Day @ Duke is an event offered through a partnership between Triangle Women in STEM, the Pratt School of Engineering, and the Coastal Pines Girl Scouts. The event offers to students a fun-filled day of hand-on STEM workshops and emphasizes STEM careers for middle and high school students with a parallel program designed for the accompanying adults focusing on STEM college readiness and supporting students STEM aspirations.
Community-Based Innovation Stories
Advancing Departmental Growth Through Strategic Leadership
Former MEMS Chair Cate Brinson reflects on her five-and-a-half years working to strengthen departmental organization and expand faculty hiring in key research areas.
Designing Healthcare Solutions with DukeEngage Uganda
Ann Saterbak brings students to Uganda for an eight-week summer experience working with community partners and addressing the needs of Ugandan healthcare facilities.
Built With Teachers: Bringing Engineering Design to Classrooms
Partnerships with local middle and high school teachers allow Duke Engineering STEM outreach to multiply its impact.
Contact Us
How can Duke help spark innovation in your community? Email Pratt-CBI@duke.edu or complete the form below to learn more.
Adrienne Stiff-Roberts, Ph.D.
adrienne.stiffroberts@duke.eduAssociate Dean for Community-Based Innovation, Professor of ECE
Alisha Brice
Director, Community-Based Innovation