Aashna Aggarwal (T'19) first learned about Duke as a high school student in India. She was drawn to Duke's focus on energy and the environment, and she soon became immersed in the vibrant energy community on campus. From Bass Connections to summer internships, Aashna has run the gamut of interdisciplinary energy offerings at Duke. Learn more about her story in this brief video interview.

The U.N. Climate Change Negotiations Practicum is a Duke Bass Connections-affiliated course that explores the negotiations around global climate change. Stay up to date with the students' blog as they prep for, and then go to, the negotiations. 

Freshman Xiaochen Du (T'21) took part in the Duke University Energy Initiative's new program to fund undergraduate research assistantships last spring. His work with Pratt faculty member Dr. Volker Blum brought value to a groundbreaking new energy materials project, helping position the project to land a $100,000 grant from the National Science Foundation. 

"I am a big believer in the power of markets to power an energy transition," Energy Initiative director Brian Murray writes in his latest Forbes blog, "but current market forces alone cannot achieve the types of deep decarbonization levels called for in the United States and elsewhere to arrest the climate problem." Murray explains why.

The Duke Startup Challenge, founded in 1999, is a hands-on program designed to give Duke students experience starting a company. It's a student community that follows a year long process involving changing one's mindset, identifying opportunities, and developing solutions. The top teams are invited to participate in a summer accelerator hosted in Durham. There's over $50,000 available in funding, including the $10K Clean Energy Prize, awarded by the Duke University Energy Initiative.

In last year's Duke Startup Challenge, the Energy Initiative's Clean Energy Prize was awarded to GOLeafe, which has developed a new production process for graphene, a promising nanomaterial with potential applications in solar energy production and energy storage. The GOLeafe team, which includes Arsheen Allam (MBA'17) and Towqir Aziz (MA'18), was also honored with the first annual Dean Yep Jr. Memorial Prize.

(Fun fact: Clean Energy Prize winner Allam was recently named to Forbes's 2019 list of 30 Under 30 in Energy, which identifies "young stars in the energy sector under the age of 30.") 

Are you an interested Duke student? The first step is to sign up here by December 17, 2018! For this deadline, fill out that simple form as an individual. (At this stage, no need to have a startup ide, or a team!)

The Duke Startup Challenge is hosted by the Fuqua School of Business and the Duke Innovation & Entrepreneurship Initiative.

We are pleased to announce that Peter Colohan will be the first Executive Director to lead the Internet of Water, working to realize the vision of connecting water data for sustainability. Peter comes to us from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) where he served as the Director of Service Innovation and Partnership at the Office of Water Prediction.

With the goal to enhance his network in mind, energy PhD student Edgar Virguez became interested in participating in "36 Hours at Duke," an event that promotes rapid connection-building among a small cohort of current Duke students and a diverse group of accomplished alumni. Read his reflective blog post for The Graduate School of Duke University.

Governor Roy Cooper recently signed an executive order on climate change, setting goals for the state's economy to reduce greenhouse emissions 40 percent from earlier levels by 2025.

“These goals by themselves do not really have much effect,” wrote Billy Pizer, faculty fellow in the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions and Susan B. King Professor of Public Policy, in an article appearing in the Duke Chronicle. "Any real action will require legislation."

The Global Energy Access Network (GLEAN) organization is now accepting applications for the 3rd volume of the Energy Access Case Study publication. They are looking for students from any discipline (undergraduate, graduate, post-doc, or professional) that has engagement in the field of energy access. Submit your application on your research, study abroad, internship, field work, or other engagements related to energy access in low-income or developing countries for a chance to publish a 5 page study and win $200.

Submission deadline January 31, 2019. Learn more about the proposal application requirements here.

This October, a group of 12 Duke students pursuing master's degrees in environmental management at the Nicholas School of the Environment traveled to Philadelphia for the Nicholas Net Impact club's corporate sustainability trek. Our goal? To visit and learn from seven companies leading the way in solving global challenges at the intersection of business and the environment.