Every journey of the thousands of new Duke and Duke Kunshan graduates tells a different story. The students came from around the globe, charged with curiosity and care about the major challenges facing societies. Below are brief profiles from eight students - seven undergraduates and one graduate student - who are ready to contribute to the wider community.
Jenny Green
Pratt School of Engineering
Jenny Green didn't come to Duke hoping to pursue a career in academia. As an electrical and computer engineering and math major, she expected to graduate and enter the workforce.
However, her experience as a teaching assistant for the Signals and Systems (ECE 280L) lab for the last four semesters helped to change her mind. She saw how passionate her professors and graduate students were about teaching, and she caught the bug.
I enjoy the experience of sharing what I am passionate about with students ... and I like seeing students become more passionate about those things.
Jenny Green
When she wasn't working with engineering students, Green has been an active member of Hoof 'n' Horn , the student-run musical theater group.
After graduating from Duke, Green will start a Ph.D. program in the fall in applied mathematics at the University of Washington.
"I decided to go for applied math because I thought it combined the things I am interested in academically well," she said. "It provides some of the rigor in thinking that I found math classes give me, but it's still all grounded in and motivated by applications, which is important to me."
Read the full story at the Pratt School website.
Andrew Trexler
Sanford School of Public Policy
In an age awash with digital content and 24/7 news cycles, how well does the information we consume actually equip us for democratic life? This critical question lies at the heart of the research conducted by Andrew Trexler, who is graduating with a Ph.D. earned through the joint program in public policy and political science. Trexler studies the interplay between political communication, the news media, public opinion, and the health of democratic norms in the United States.
"I am particularly interested in the contemporary information environment: how people get news information, how news information affects their attitudes and behaviors, how the information environment both affects and is affected by policy decisions of governments and civil society," he said.
"Much of my current work is centered on who U.S. political news is written for (and who it is not written for), analyzing the media's faltering capacity to provide the broad public with news information that is critical for democratic accountability - and identifying what could be done to improve that capacity.
In the fall, he will join the faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison as an assistant professor of political science.
