Clark Scholars Forge Connections on Duke’s Campus During Annual Summit

One of Duke Engineering’s guiding principles is to imagine solutions that make people’s lives better, and that spirit resonated throughout the annual Clark Scholars Summit, held September 12-14 on Duke’s campus.

Launched in 2023, the Clark Scholars Program Network helps train the next generation of engineers by making engineering education more accessible. It brings together exceptional undergraduate scholars and leaders from 11 engineering institutions to confront society’s key challenges with a multidisciplinary, socially-conscious and entrepreneurial approach. Program participants take engineering and business classes, participate in community service and attend seminars and events with leaders in the field.

“To me, bringing together of all of the Clark Scholars across all eleven partner institutions is invaluable,” said Adria Dunbar, interim director of the A. James Clark Scholars Program at Duke. “The common experience these students have through the Clark Scholars Program will extend far beyond their college years and will create connections when they enter their future careers.”

Partner institutions include the nation’s leading engineering schools: Georgia Tech, The George Washington University, Johns Hopkins University, University of Maryland, Penn State, Stevens Institute of Technology, University of Pennsylvania, University of Virginia, Vanderbilt University, Virginia Tech, and Duke University.

The three-day schedule for 110 engineering sophomores included opening remarks from Vinik Dean of Engineering Jerome P. Lynch and Courtney Clark Pastrick, who is the current Board Chair of the A. James & Alice B. Clark Foundation and a former president of the organization for nearly 30 years. Both emphasized the Foundation’s mission to empower scholars who combine technical excellence with a commitment to leadership and service.

On the second day of the summit, scholars participated in the Clark Tank Design Challenge, which collected three real-world environmental and engineering-related challenges faced by the city of Durham to inspire participants to develop practical, community-centered solutions. The prompts included:

• Designing a stormwater management solution that individual homeowners could implement on their properties to reduce runoff and prevent neighborhood flooding.
• Creating a mobile app that helps pedestrians and cyclists track, report, and share route safety information in real time—empowering users to make safer travel choices and providing the city with valuable data for future improvements.
• Developing a low-cost, easy-to-install retrofitting kit (e.g., solar window inserts, insulation panels, draft stoppers) that homeowners or volunteers can implement without major renovations.

Working under tight time and budget constraints, scholars prototyped and presented practical, community-centered solutions that demonstrated the program’s shared vision: using engineering to make a positive difference in the world.

To close out the summit, students turned their energy toward giving back through a service-learning project with the North Carolina Diaper Bank, sorting and packing essential supplies for local families in need.

By the end of the three-day summit, participants had built lasting connections aimed to deepen their commitment to using engineering for the public good. Working on challenges rooted in Durham’s pressing engineering needs (including stormwater management and renewable energy) to completing a service-learning project, scholars were able to put meaningful innovation with intentional listening and empathy into practice.