Student Assistants Help Accelerate Environmental Progress at the Nicholas Institute

Each year, student assistants from diverse Duke degree programs support and enrich the work of the Nicholas Institute. This academic year’s cohort of 31 undergraduate and graduate student assistants spanned 7 schools and 17 degree programs. Together, they contributed to the institute’s interdisciplinary work at the nexus of policy and practice.

They worked alongside expert Nicholas Institute researchers and staff to tackle diverse projects, including examining the effects of timber harvest on biodiversity in North America, exploring just energy transitions in low- and middle-income countries, supporting large-scale Nicholas Institute event efforts with ease, assessing affordable housing policy and gentrification, documenting Nicholas Institute operations from Durham to Dubai, and more.

This year’s group included students pursuing bachelor’s degrees in computer science (CS), earth and climate science (ECS), economics (Econ), engineering (Eng), environmental science and policy (ESP), public policy (PP), sociology (S), and visual and media studies (VM); master’s degrees in business administration (MBA), environmental management (MEM), forestry (MF), interdisciplinary data science (MIDS), international development policy (MIDP), and public policy (MPP); juris doctorates (JD); and doctorates in computer engineering and economics (PhD).

Thank you to the Nicholas Institute’s 2023–2024 student assistants:

• Advikaa Anand, PP, Econ ’26
• Andreana Chou, MEM ’25
• Adam Cowie-Haskell, MEM ’25
• Al Ghiffary, MEM ’24
• Juan Gomez, S ’25
• Shubhangi Gupta, MEM ’25
• Chris Hachtman, MEM ’25
• Danny Han, PhD
• Sadie Horner, MF ’25
• Rosalind Hu, MEM ’25
• Ya-Yun Huang, MIDS ’24
• Cassie Kang, MIDS ’25
• Julia Kourelakos, CS ’25
• Cara Kuuskvere, MEM ’25
• Kira Lichtenfeld, ESP ’25
• Joy Liu, CS, VM ’25
• Yu Ma (postdoctoral researcher, PhD ’23, MEcon ’18)
• Paul Markakis, PhD
• Sayra Martinez, MPP ’25
• Katie Maxwell, MEM ’25
• Anna Maynard, ESP ’26
• Lauren Ng, MEM ’25
• Pragya Raghuvanshi, MIDS 24’
• Pablo Salazar Armella, MEM ’25
• Aashna Sawhney, ESP ’24
• Alexandra Schaffer, ECS ’27
• Simon Sharp, MF ’24
• Nicholas Sommer, MEM ’25
• Chloe Wetzler, JD, MEM ’27
• Sydney Williams, MEM ’25
• Jacqueline Wittich, MEM, MBA ’26
• Madison Wurst, MEM ’25
• Yuanjing Zhu, MIDS ’24
  
   

Check out what a few Nicholas Institute experts had to say about how student assistants powered up their work:

From Michelle Talal (Ecosystem Services Program)

• Simon Sharp (Master of Forestry, Class of 2024, Graduate Research Assistant, Ecosystem Services Program). Simon's detail-oriented approach and strong background in forestry and data management has helped us make progress toward understanding the effects of timber harvesting on biodiversity outcomes across North America.
   
• Sadie Horner (Master of Forestry, Class of 2025, Graduate Research Assistant, Ecosystem Services Program): Sadie assisted our meta-analysis to evaluate the effects of timber harvesting on biodiversity outcomes across North America. Her great organization and efficiency helped the team to review thousands of scientific articles.
   
• Madison Wurst (Master of Environmental Management, Class of 2025, Graduate Research Assistant, Ecosystem Services Program). Madi's excellent analytical skills and work ethic have helped our team to review scientific articles, perform statistical analyses, create figures, and develop our meta-analysis framework.

From Kyle Bradbury (Energy Data Analytics Lab):

• Over the past year, the students working with the Energy Data Analytics Lab have been contributing to Climate TRACE, a project focused on creating open, transparent greenhouse gas emissions tracking by sector.  These students spent the past year collecting, processing, and analyzing data and combed through dozens of papers and reports on building greenhouse gas emissions estimates. These hardworking Duke students made valuable contributions to novel research to understand how energy is used in buildings across the globe and its impact on the climate, among other key Lab projects.
  
  Energy Data Analytics Lab students: Pablo Salazar Armella, Ya-Yun Huang, Julia Kourelakos, Paul Markakis, Pragya Raghuvanshi, Nicholas Sommer, Yuanjing Zhu.
   

From Jackson Ewing (Energy & Climate Policy Program):

• Cara Kuuskvere, MEM ’25, has helped the Energy Access Project and NIEES Energy and Climate Program build the analytical foundation of our work on just energy transitions in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Cara has deftly and creatively compiled and analyzed data that show the wide range of energy systems, development characteristics, and climate assets across LMICs that must take center stage in future transition strategies.
   
• Al Ghiffary worked on a USAID-supported project with the NIEES energy and climate policy program exploring the implications of China’s shifting outbound investments for developing countries around the world. He truly excelled on this front, bringing innovative new ideas to the project and offering polished and detailed analysis which made it into the final report. A 2024 graduate, Al will soon return to his native Indonesia where he will continue to work on critical development issues.
   

From Bryan Koen (Student Experience Team)

• Rosalind Hu (MEM ’25, Graduate Education Assistant) made a diverse array of contributions to the Nicholas Institute’s Student Experience team. She provided support for large-scale events; researched and wrote blogs on the energy industry for the Duke University Career Center’s Energy, Environment & Sustainability career community hub; conducted electricity rate simulation and financial modeling for a competition prompt focused on energy storage siting optimization; and more.

From Elizabeth Christenson-Diver and Kay Jowers (Environmental Justice Lab)

• Our undergraduate and graduate students in the Environmental Justice Lab are inspiring in their passion and ready engagement discussing the complexity around bringing an environmental justice lens to our work. Our students have focused this last year on qualitative assessments of affordable housing provisions in government policy and in property deeds as well as building quantitative assessments of gentrification. Additionally, our students are not only active in our lab but also in other environmental justice initiatives across Duke’s campus.
   
• Our undergraduate students are: Kira Lichtenfeld (Environmental Science and Policy, 2026, project focus: federal programs and special projects), Alexandra Schaffer (Earth & Climate Sciences, 2027, project focus: qualitative), Joy Liu (Computer Science, Visual & Media Science, 2025, project focus: quantitative), Aashna Sawhney (Environmental Science & Policy, 2024, project focus: quantitative), Anna Maynard (Environmental Science & Policy, 2026, project focus: qualitative), Juan Gomez (Sociology, 2025, project focus: qualitative), Advikaa Anand (2026, project focus: qualitative)
   
• Our graduate students are: Sydney Williams (Environmental Management, 2025, project focus: qualitative), Cassie Kang (Interdisciplinary Data Science, 2025, project focus: quantitative)
   
• Our affiliated graduate student and postdoctoral research scholar are: Danny Han (PhD student, Economics) and Yu Ma.

From Braden Welborn (Communications Team)

• Katie Maxwell (MEM ’25, Communications Graduate Assistant) applied her considerable communications, research, and organizational skills to make invaluable contributions to the Nicholas Institute. She captured and curated compelling photos and quotes (including at COP28 in the United Arab Emirates), helped promote and document the student-organized Energy Week at Duke, evaluated technical solutions, completed web analytics projects, and so much more! Our work requires us to be nimble and responsive—Katie embraced this variety, collaborating effectively with every member of our team over the year. Her questions and insights—and her sunny attitude—helped make us better at what we do!