Nicholas School initiatives prominently factor into the 2024 State of the Climate Commitment, a review of progress over the past fiscal year toward integrating climate and sustainability into every aspect of the university ecosystem.

“The Nicholas School is the beating heart of the Duke Climate Commitment, and this report provides excellent recognition of the efforts of our faculty, staff and students,” said Lori Bennear, interim Stanback Dean of NSOE.

Below are examples of NSOE people and programs that appear in the new report:

Education

• NSOE offered multiple scholars programs for undergraduates interested in environmental stewardship and climate solutions.
  • The Climate Scholars Program named its inaugural cohort in 2024.
  • The Duke Marine Lab Scholars encompasses the Repass-Rodgers Scholars, the Scholars in Marine Medicine and the Rachel Carson Scholars. 
• In 2024, Duke’s Pre-College programming, open to kids in grades 6-11, included an option for students to spend a week at the Duke Marine Lab and take courses on sustainability, conservation, marine biology and more.
• Staff and faculty from NSOE’s Environment+ program, Learning Innovation and Lifetime Education and the Office of Climate and Sustainability collected ideas for online courses that would cater to working professionals and adult learners. Climate Science for Everyone, taught by Prasad Kasibhatla, has since launched on Coursera. A class in environmental leadership, taught by Sam Hanna, is in development. 
• During the inaugural year of Design Climate, students from NSOE and the Pratt School of Engineering identified market opportunities and developed startup ideas.

Research

• Debt-for-nature swaps are a promising pathway for addressing the debt burdens of developing countries while promoting environmental conservation and climate resilience. Stuart Pimm, Elizabeth Losos of the Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment, & Sustainability and Alex Pfaff of the Sanford School of Public Policy explored key reforms to enhance the impact of these swaps. Their analysis, published this year in the journal Science, advocates for greater debt relief, streamlined costs, reliable performance metrics and a stronger focus on biodiversity and climate goals.
• In partnership with Daniel Richter’s soils lab, the Duke Campus Farm launched the Soil Fertility Fellowship in 2024 to analyze the impact of regenerative agriculture — a conservation approach for farming — on soil health. 
• Sparked by a 2023 research symposium, the following interdisciplinary projects received funding from the NSOE Dean’s Research Venture Initiative:
  • Development and validation of Climate Change Spaces (CLICS) to identify one health hotspots (principal investigators: William Pan, Drew Shindell, Shineng Hu, Mark Janko (Duke Global Health Institute))
  • Tracking the ecological impacts of ocean industrialization: using technology innovation and new data frameworks to “green the ocean economy” (principal investigators: John Virdin, Pat Halpin, Nico Cassar)
  • Assessing equity in the emerging U.S. shellfish aquaculture industry
    (participants: Grant Murray, Lisa Campbell, Elizabeth Albright, Norbert Wilson (Divinity School))
  • Stable isotopes as a biomarker for heat stress (principal investigators: Michael Kipp and Nishad Jayasundara)
• Oceans@Duke, an interdisciplinary community of experts from NSOE and other Duke schools, amplifies the work of Duke scholars focused on oceans.
• Duke Restore, a university-wide initiative based at NSOE and led by Brian Silliman, is dedicated to advancing ecosystem restoration as a science and practice that can enhance resilience in natural habitats and the communities they support.
• Nishad Jayasundara, Daniel Rittschof, John Virdin, Michelle Nowlin of Duke Law and NSOE alum Zoie Taylor Diana worked with graduate students to tackle global sustainability challenges.

“There are certainly many more examples of our role in the Climate Commitment,” Bennear added, “but this list gives a good sense of the breadth of our work and how it fits into the initiative.”