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Beyond the Horizon Initiative

Duke Engineering launched the Beyond the Horizon initiative to provide interdisciplinary teams with substantial investment to begin pursuing extremely high-risk, high-reward projects that have the potential for deep, transformative societal impact. Six proposals were selected for an initial round of funding that will play key roles in shaping Duke Engineering’s future research and teaching profile. Each plays to the school’s unique strengths and hold the promise of helping to define the future of their respective fields.

A fully recyclable transistor

Taming AI’s Outsized Appetite

AI applications demand enormous amounts of energy and water. A new collaboration aims to make circuitry more compact and sustainable

A bridge built with help from Duke students in Bolivia

Streamlining Duke Engineering's International Efforts to Maximize Impact

Duke Engineering's Beyond the Horizon initiative is launching the Center for Sustainability and the Global Community

GPS data on a car's display screen

It Pays to Share

Big Data’s value lies in its secondary value, and Duke ECE’s Jian Pei aims to encourage model sharing among organizations

An orange liquid with lots of various sized circles floating within

Scouring Nature for the Building Blocks of Biomedical Condensates

Cross-campus collaboration seeks to discover naturally occurring biological condensates, like drops of oil forming in water, to engineer new therapeutics

intricate patterns within a living leaf (left) and a bunch of different color 3D rectangles making a large structure together

Unlocking the Future Potential of Living Materials

Researchers across campus aim to harness bacteria to engineer adaptive living materials

a colorful rendering of neurons crisscrossing through the brain

Wearable Tech to Capture Better Brain Images

Wearable imaging devices have a tough time penetrating a human skull. Check out why sound-generating lasers might be the key to fast, accurate and detailed 3D brain images.