Applications are now open for 2023 Projects! Please review our projects and our program details below before applying. Submit your applications here:
Data+ is a full-time 10-week summer research experience that welcomes undergraduate and masters students interested in exploring new data-driven approaches to interdisciplinary challenges. It is suitable for students from all class years and from all majors.
Students join small project teams (at most 3 undergrads and 1 master’s student per team), working alongside other teams in a communal environment. They learn how to marshal, analyze, and visualize data, while gaining broad exposure to the modern world of data science. The projects come from an extremely diverse set of subject areas. It is our hope that students will be able to both work deeply into their specific project and get a very broad picture of most of the skills needed for modern data science.
Participants will receive a $5,000 stipend, out of which they must arrange their own housing and travel. Funding and infrastructure support are provided by a wide range of departments, schools, and initiatives from across Duke University, as well as by outside industry and community partners.
Data+ has returned to 100% in-person participation. Participants may not accept employment or take classes during the program; this requirement is strictly enforced and non-negotiable.
Due to the nature of the data involved in some of the projects, human subjects research training will be required of all participants and will be provided after admission to the program. With each project, we have attempted to list potential majors and/or interests that might be most interested in the project, but these should not be seen as requirements in any way! Quantitative STEM majors like mathematics, computer science, statistics, and electrical engineering are relevant to all.
Applied Ethics+ is a new full-time ten-week summer learning experience hosted by the Duke Initiative for Science and Society. Interdisciplinary teams of Duke undergraduate and graduate students will work with ground-breaking clients addressing pressing real-world challenges in policy, technology, research, and ethics. Extensive experience in policy, technology, research, and ethics is not a prerequisite to apply but is strongly encouraged. Technical data and computer science experience are also not necessary as projects will focus on research and policy challenges.
The program runs from Monday, May 29 through Friday, August 4, 2023. Students must be able to participate in the entire program, with no exceptions. Applications open the second week of January 2023.
Get Involved
2023 Data+ projects have been posted! See the list.
Partners
Industry partners are essential to Data+. Learn how to become a partner.

From Our Data+ Students
Data+ by the Numbers
weeks during the summer
undergraduates per team
grad student mentors per team
projects sharing ideas and code
Data+ Projects
A team of students will analyze, map, and visualize student enrollment and demographic data in Durham County. The team will collaborate closely with analytics professionals at the Durham Public Schools (DPS) operations department and will provide analysis to help DPS plan and manage student enrollment and improve fairness in its...
Students will coordinate with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Working Party on Bio-, Nano-, and Converging Technology to develop strategies to anticipate the development of emerging technologies and novel applications beginning with the field of Synthetic Biology (synbio). The development of these strategies will help the OECD...
This project looks at policy implications of the vast expansion of Brazil’s higher education system from 2004 to 2016, which sought to promote economic mobility and reduce social disparities. Through public and private university expansion, it doubled the number of Brazilians attending college. This project seeks to analyze 14 years...
A team of students led by researchers in the Computer Science Department and the coaching staff of the Duke Women’s Soccer (DWS) team will develop analytical tools to provide quantitative evaluations of individual players and whole teams. By applying machine learning techniques and other data science methods to deep event-level...
A team of students led by Physics professor Dan Scolnic will collaborate with Duke Dining leadership to provide an in-depth, quantitative accounting of the carbon footprint of the Duke Dining program. Students will use the latest research quantifying CO2 equivalent greenhouse gas emissions for various food types, meals, and sources...
Students on this project will assist Illumina with the development of good genomic data-sharing principles to help garner effective communication and trust among patients, physicians, and genomic researchers. Specifically, students will research and propose data-sharing principles to encourage the ethical collection, sharing, and communication of patient genomic data with their...
Students will collaborate with the research team of Dr. Kathleen Cooney, including prominent partners both at Duke and other institutes, to identify genetic variants likely associated with early onset prostate cancer in African American patients identified by the Metropolitan Detroit Cancer Surveillance System (MDCSS) cancer registry. Students will analyze whole...
A team of students led by researchers in the Social Science Research Institute and Departments of Mathematics and Statistics will curate a unique video data set for studying how different aspects of social interactions relate to social and psychiatric variables, like trust, empathy, and scores on clinical social competence and...
A team of students led by researchers in the O-Lab for auditory neuroscience will determine whether the imagination of speech and nonspeech sounds can be distinguished using on a non-invasive measurement of activation in the brain, electroencephalography (EEG). Students will collect and analyze EEG data from human participants in response...
Students on this project will assist Illumina with the research and assessment of Community-Based Review Boards to enable greater transparency in the ethical collection and use of patient data. Students should expect to familiarize themselves with the context of different types of ethics review boards and their role in the...
A team of students led by Dr. Otis Jennings will explore and create a research paper that seeks to understand the gap between the stated diversity funding, goals and support by corporations relative to their actual level of support to diverse founders. The research will require navigating corporate reporting, media,...
Interested in using satellites and machine learning to help keep decision-makers better informed about climate change? Interested in learning about cutting-edge computer vision techniques for analyzing satellite imagery and how to scale them up globally? Come join a student team collaborating with the Energy Data Analytics Lab as we democratize...
Students will collaborate to develop a document that outlines the current policy, research, and practice landscape of Whole Genome Sequencing for New Born Screening. Students will have the opportunity to conduct a thorough review of the existing literature and consult with relevant stakeholders to synthesize a clear and concise report....
A team of students led by Dr. Jim Heffernan of the Nicholas School of the Environment, will use remote imagery and object identification tools to determine changes in parking lot occupancy in the Research Triangle region during the Covid-19 pandemic’s acute and post-acute phases. Students will use open-source geospatial data...
Researchers with the Duke River Center and the Watershed Biogeochemistry Lab will investigate patterns of anoxia, or periods of little to no oxygen, in rivers. Oxygen is a necessary element for many organisms to live in rivers, but researchers know little about the timing, duration, and magnitude of low oxygen...
A team of students led by professors Maurizio Forte, Classical Studies and AAHVS and Leonard White, Neurology, will study the embodied aesthetic experience engendered by real and virtual interactions with archeological ruins (“ruinscapes”) and virtual representations of places, spaces, and cultural artifacts associated with an ancient city. The focus will...
Students will collaborate with CEE Professors David Carlson and Mike Bergin to model the effects of land use on the urban heat island effect using satellite imagery and ground-level temperature measurements. Students will use machine learning to segment satellite images of Durham, North Carolina by land use. They will then...
A team of students led by Civil & Environmental Engineering Professor Helen Hsu-Kim will develop a resource reserves database of coal ash wastes stored in hundreds of legacy disposal sites in the United States. The team will extract key information from historical datasets on coal energy production, incorporate geochemical information...
A team of students led by Prof. Zuchuan Li and co-led by Prof. Nicolas Cassar will develop means to estimate the amount of CO2 transferred from the ocean surface to the deep ocean through machine learning techniques applied to satellite data and automatic observations. Students will identify variables that can...
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