AFIRE Grant

TBA

Aisha Mane

Program II: The Biochemical and Social Dimensions of Health in the Black Diaspora

Mentor: Charmaine Royal

Aisha Mane’s summer project involved conducting a wide-ranging literature review of clinical, social, biological and structural domains related to sickle cell disease. The work required intentional and close reading, allowing Mane to deepen her understanding of the disease and refine methods for processing and retaining information from diverse sources. She also used the summer to begin writing background chapters for her senior thesis. This fall, Mane began data collection, with analysis planed for the spring. She’s excited to pursue work at the intersection of her passions: addressing health disparities in the Black diaspora and tackling complex, multifaceted problems. 

Sophie Brooks

Program II: Mind, Meaning, Movement: A Multidimensional Approach to Human Wellness

Mentor: Bridgette Hard

Sophie Brooks plans to create a podcast as the medium for her Graduation with Distinction project. She has arranged interviews with leading experts in the wellness field, including neuroscientists, psychologists, religious leaders, physical educators and wellness specialists. She will conduct interviews in Los Angeles over winter break and continue throughout the school year in Durham. She will be mentored throughout this project by Eric Trexler. 

Katelyn Cai

Program II: Social and Public Trust in the Digital Age

Mentor: Phil Napoli

Katelyn Cai will travel to Colorado to interview former journalists and editors from three shuttered newspapers and write a profile on the forces behind the collapse of local journalism, which she will then pitch to national publications. Her research on trust in media and institutions frames the project: local news outlets, once anchors of civic trust, are now casualties of a growing mistrust epidemic that erodes both financial stability and democratic engagement. By gathering firsthand accounts from those affected, Katelyn will explore how newspapers set prices, stay afloat, and what happens to communities when they fail—insights that will enrich her honors thesis on the predictors of local newspaper prices. Grounded in her Program II’s interdisciplinary approach, this project blends journalism, economics, and media studies while strengthening her reporting, interviewing, and photojournalism skills through real-world fieldwork.

Aissatou Diallo

Program II: The Intersections of Performing Arts and Science: Incorporating Biological and Psychological Perspectives

Mentor: Andrea Woods-Valdes

Aissatou Diallo’s winter project serves as both exploratory research and creative development for her Program II senior capstone, The Somatic Script: How Performance Writes Itself on the Body. She is investigating how different performance settings — live, recorded or participatory — shape activity in the mind and body, and whether live performance produces a distinctive physiological “mark” reflected in neural synchrony and autonomic responses. Over winter break, she will re-block her choreography to accommodate wearable sensors such as electroencephalography (EEG) and electrodermal activity (EDA) devices. She will conduct a pilot study, film the revised piece and prepare material that will later be performed with the same technology in the Duke Dance Program’s Spring Dances. This work will inform her larger capstone project as she begins data collection in the spring.

Aidan Klein

Program II: Character Studies: Personality, Storytelling, and Embodiment

Mentor: Jeff Storer

Aidin Klein will travel to London to interview and observe creative professionals in theatre, animation and puppetry. Attending performances and exhibitions, he will document his observations through sketches, writing and reflection. Through these experiences, he aims to gain practical knowledge in animation and storytelling while drawing creative inspiration from a range of artistic perspectives. Collectively, these insights will deepen his understanding of how character and emotion are conveyed across mediums, while informing his interdisciplinary capstone on shifting identities.

Daliya Rizvi

Project II: Immuno-Oncology and Ethics

Mentor: Sherryl Broverman

Daliya Rizvi will design and deliver interactive virtual workshops in Urdu for women undergoing dialysis and managing chronic illnesses, with a focus on mental wellness, nutrition, reproductive health and personal hygiene. By collaborating with a social worker at a large-scale health institute in Karachi, Daliya is working to ensure that all materials are culturally sensitive, evidence-based, and accessible to participants with varying levels of literacy and digital familiarity. Alongside the workshops, she is developing a bilingual website offering health resources and a menstrual cycle tracker, providing participants with tools to engage with their wellbeing beyond the sessions. By merging patient-centered communication, cross-cultural collaboration, and digital health education, Taboo seeks to empower women to take ownership of their healthcare while strengthening Rizvi’s interdisciplinary work in immuno-oncology and ethics, where empathy, education, and ethical engagement are central to improving patient outcomes.

Dhruv Rungta

Project II: Economics, Ecology & Sustainability Development

Mentor: Chris Sims

Over winter break, Dhruv Rungta will work with People in Need (PIN) Mongolia, an NGO helping local people cope with extreme weather events and climate change, improving rural livelihoods and supporting sustainable development. PIN manages several EU- and UNICEF-funded projects that align closely with his Program II in Economics, Ecology and Sustainable Development.  Rungta will help support the organization’s Cooking, Heating, and Insulation Products (CHIP) initiative, which addresses air pollution and energy inequity in Ulaanbaatar’s Ger districts: informal settlements where residents rely on raw coal for heating and cooking due to limited access to the city’s central heating system. 

During his time in Mongolia, Rungta will collaborate closely with PIN leadership to contribute to its sustainable development efforts while pursuing three key goals: creating a photo essay on air pollution and energy justice to support public education and grant development, gaining hands-on insight into how PIN projects are designed and implemented and deepening his understanding of Mongolia’s ecology, culture and community-based approaches to environmental work. 

Courtney Yribarren

Project II: Sustainable Human Development

Mentor: K Whetten

As part of her Program II thesis, Courtney Yribarren will attend the Singapore Tap Festival over winter break to integrate fieldwork into her research. The four-day international festival features tap dance intensives, performances, socials and jams, drawing participants from Australia and across Southeast Asia. During the festival, Yribarren will observe how dancers exchange knowledge across national and linguistic boundaries, conduct semi-structured interviews with artists and organizers and test the applicability of the digital Dance Commons platform she is developing. Her goal is to identify the resources, values and governance structures — such as contracts, business models, institutional partnerships, mutual aid, access and decentralization — needed to ensure that the platform is inclusive and effective on a global scale.