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Nine Reasons Stellar Interdisciplinary Faculty Choose Duke

The richness of Duke’s intellectual communities and its deep commitment to interdisciplinarity are major draws for top scholars who are leaders in their fields. To help recruit these academic stars, Duke leveraged the university-wide institutes, initiatives and centers (UICs) to create the Provost’s School-UIC Joint Hiring Program and to offer starting support from UICs. Donors’ generous gifts helped make these programs possible.

Duke was able to recruit more than 40 faculty members through these mechanisms between 2006 and 2021. They have become key figures across campus, assuming leadership roles, driving innovative research, forging impactful collaborations, garnering awards and mentoring junior scholars. Nine of these successful hires share why they came to Duke and why they stay.

Leveraging Resources

Junfeng (Jim) Zhang

Professor of Global and Environmental Health; Chair of the Environmental Sciences and Policy Division, Nicholas School of the Environment; American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Fellow; Bass Connections Team Leader

“This joint hiring program was the only reason for me to join the Duke faculty from another prominent research university. I was able to conveniently leverage the resources across the campus side (e.g., Nicholas School of the Environment) and the health side of Duke (e.g., Duke Global Health Institute) and find collaborators from Nicholas, Pratt, Sanford, Medicine and the Duke Cancer Institute. On the education side, the hiring program offered me opportunities to collaborate with faculty members in arts and sciences in establishing education programs at Duke Kunshan University.”

Read about undergraduate and graduate programs at Duke Kunshan.

Intellectual Growth and Academic Rigor

Jen’nan Read

Professor of Sociology; Chair of Sociology; Bass Society of Fellows; Howard D. Johnson Award for Undergraduate Teaching; Duke Ivy+ Provost Leadership Fellow

“When I joined Duke in 2008, I saw a door open to exciting possibilities for intellectual growth and academic rigor in a community of outstanding scholars and students. I’ve not been disappointed. The provost’s hiring initiative was forward-thinking and met the challenges of recruiting scholars who worked across departments, institutes and disciplines. My research on the social determinants of health disparities and Arab and Muslim integration crosscut numerous social scientific and medical fields and was an excellent match with the Duke Global Health Institute and my home department of sociology. As I complete my sixth and final year as chair of sociology, I know I made the right decision to join Duke!”

Read about her work on White health disparities.

Culture of Collaboration

Geraldine Dawson

William Cleland Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry; American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellow; Director, Duke Center for Autism and Brain Development; Affiliate, Duke Global Health Institute

“I joined the faculty at Duke because of its culture of interdisciplinary collaboration. As a psychologist studying autism, I’ve teamed up with computer scientists, engineers, mathematicians and pediatricians to create innovative autism screening tools and therapies. Duke’s spirit of working across disciplines is special!”

Read about her work to develop AI tools for detecting autism during infancy.

Scaffolding for Success

Marc Jeuland

Professor in the Sanford School of Public Policy; Faculty Director, Energy Access Project in the Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment & Sustainability; Bass Connections Team Leader

“As a scholar who eschews simple labels, especially of the disciplinary variety, I have been blessed to be at Duke, which is a place that really does seem to value interdisciplinarity. From hiring odd ducks like me to facilitating access to pilot funds to experimenting with new models for applied learning and research, Duke actually does put effort into this. I feel very much at home in this intellectual community and can only hope that I also share this vision with those I seek to mentor.”

Learn about his work on a global network of climate observatories.

Engaging Across Disciplines

Kate Bundorf

J. Alexander McMahon Distinguished Professor of Health Policy and Management; Faculty Director of Research in the Sanford School of Public Policy; Core Faculty Member, Duke-Margolis Institute for Health Policy; Provost Faculty Fellow

“Duke is distinctive in its combination of strong disciplinary departments and programs in combination with its commitment to and ability to support interdisciplinary research. There are few boundaries, either physical and intellectual, to engaging with researchers and students across disciplines and research areas. This creates a rich environment for interdisciplinary thinking.”

Read about her work on hospital competition and value-based care.

Deeply Interdisciplinary

Walter Sinnott-Armstrong

Chauncey Stillman Distinguished Professor of Practical Ethics in the Department of Philosophy and the Kenan Institute for Ethics; Bass Connections Team Leader; Faculty Network Member of the Duke Institute for Brain Sciences; Associate of the Duke Initiative for Science & Society

“I came to Duke largely to extend my interests beyond my own department, philosophy, but I had not imagined how easy and fruitful Duke would make the kind of research I dearly wanted to pursue. Leaders in other fields were eager not only to talk casually but also to collaborate in depth and to teach with me. Since coming to Duke, I have published and received grants with psychologists, neuroscientists, evolutionary anthropologists, computer scientists, engineers, legal scholars, policy experts, psychiatrists, gerontologists and medical doctors. Nothing like this range would have been possible elsewhere.”

Read about his work on morality and AI.

Flexible Environment

Beth Sullivan

James B. Duke Distinguished Professor of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology; Associate Dean of Research Training, School of Medicine; Gordon G. Hammes Faculty Teaching Award; American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellow; Associate of the Duke Initiative for Science & Society

“There were several reasons why I moved my lab to Duke, including the ability to tailor my research program to address some of the most exciting, fundamental and difficult questions in chromosome biology and human genetics. As I interacted with faculty and students outside the School of Medicine and across campus, I realized I could form a small and talented research group consisting of staff, undergraduates and graduate students, while also developing a professional identity that integrated my interests in teaching undergraduates in the amazing Focus Program, serving the institution through committees and building leadership skills. I believe I was able to be different and unique (for a faculty member in the SoM, that is) due to flexibilities in Duke’s academic culture.”

Read about her role as associate dean for research training.

Can-Do Attitude

Tobias Egner

Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience; Chair of Psychology and Neuroscience; Investigator in the Duke Institute for Brain Sciences; Associate of the Duke Initiative for Science & Society

“In my view, the most distinctive strengths of Duke are collegiality and a strong commitment to fostering a highly interdisciplinary approach to the research and education enterprise. I have only ever encountered open doors, be it for launching new research collaborations or reforming graduate training programs — there is a great can-do attitude that seems quite unique to Duke.”

Learn about his work on short-term memory.

Intellectually Generous Community

Kyle Bradbury

Assistant Research Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering; Managing Director, Energy Data Analytics Lab; Bass Connections Award for Outstanding Leadership; Bass Connections Team Leader; Faculty Fellow in the Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment & Sustainability

“Duke is actively interdisciplinary. From education to research, Duke doesn’t just welcome collaborations across traditional disciplinary boundaries, it enthusiastically catalyzes them around the most pressing societal challenges. What makes this successful is the immensely talented and intellectually generous community of students, staff and faculty.”

Learn how the Energy Data Analytics Lab is strengthening the world’s largest inventory of greenhouse gas emissions.

Visit Giving to Duke to learn about the university’s MADE FOR THIS campaign and see how you can make an impact with faculty support.

Main image, first row: Junfeng (Jim) Zhang, Jen’nan Read, Geraldine Dawson, Marc Jeuland, Kate Bundorf; second row: Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Beth Sullivan, Tobias Egner, Kyle Bradbury