Duke Social Science Research Institute (SSRI): An Overview

2. © 2015 Duke CGGC AGENDA 1. Institutional History of Duke SSRI 2. Evolution of Duke SSRI  “Pre-2013 Duke SSRI”  “2015 Duke SSRI” 3. Fitting the “New” SSRI into the Interdisciplinary Landscape at Duke 2

4. © 2015 Duke CGGC DUKE SSRI • Duke University 2001 strategic plan envisaged catalytic presence in interdisciplinary social science research and education • SSRI opened its doors in 2003 as one of Duke’s signature institutes and Centers • For the first 10 years, SSRI served as an incubator or umbrella institute for disparate research centers directed by individual Duke professors • Provided administrative support to the centers in the areas of finance, information technology, human resources, grant administration and communications 4

8. © 2015 Duke CGGC Year 1: Construction &Planning for Gross Hall Move Year 2: Move to Gross Hall and Pilot Infrastructure in Gross Hall Year 3: Introduction of fully operational “New SSRI” to Campus and incubate communities 3 YEAR TRANSITION TO “NEW” SSRI 8

13. © 2015 Duke CGGC EMERGING BIG “TREES” OF CONNECTED COMMUNITIES 13 EHDi Educational Programs Research Working Groups Bass Projects University Partnership Incubating Research Projects Data Repositories Community Projects Pilot Projects

15. © 2015 Duke CGGC Successful division of labor … Physics … Philosophy Chemistry Biology Mathematics Statistics Economics PoliticalScience Sociology Psychology Anthropology History Classics Literature TheArts This evolution of disciplinary specialization has led to the most extraordinary advance in human knowledge and well-being. So why isn’t it good enough? CLAIM: The most pressing challenges we face in the 21st Century cannot be addressed from within separated disciplines.

16. © 2015 Duke CGGC Example of 21st Century Challenge … Physics … Philosophy Chemistry Biology Mathematics Statistics Economics PoliticalScience Sociology Psychology Anthropology History Classics Literature TheArts Health care Clinical research of course continues to be vital … … as does the search for more sophisticated technological advances. But we now understand that behavioral choices are as important to medical outcomes as clinical treatments. Which disciplines matter?

17. © 2015 Duke CGGC Example of 21st Century Challenge …… Philosophy Mathematics Statistics Economics PoliticalScience History Classics Literature TheArts Health care But we now understand that behavioral choices are as important to medical outcomes as clinical treatments. The historical context gives rise to the political constraints reformers face … … and provides the backdrop for deep ethical inquiry as health care changes.

18. © 2015 Duke CGGC Example of 21st Century Challenge …… Mathematics Statistics Economics Literature TheArts Health care The historical context gives rise to the political constraints reformers face … … and provides the backdrop for deep ethical inquiry as health care changes. Big data has emerged as a means for linking clinical and behavioral choices as medicine becomes more targeted …

19. © 2015 Duke CGGC Example of 21st Century Challenge …… Literature TheArts Health care Big data has emerged as a means for linking clinical and behavioral choices as medicine becomes more targeted … … and the arts provide an enduring forum to explore, communicate and humanize the issues we confront.

20. © 2015 Duke CGGC Example of 21st Century Challenge Health care … and the arts provide an enduring forum to explore, communicate and humanize the issues we confront. Each discipline can individually make its mark on the health care challenges of our time, but collaborations across disciplines can create more than the sum of its parts.

21. © 2015 Duke CGGC • Among the new ‘big trees’ of connected communities in the interdisciplinary landscape at Duke is one called ‘Education and Human Development, (EHD) • Themes within EHD Emerging bottom up EDUCATION AND HUMAN DEVELOPMENT 21

22. © 2015 Duke CGGC 22 The North Carolina in the Global Economy project has existed at Duke CGGC for many years and is now gaining new momentum as a project within this Education and Human Development focus.

24. © 2015 Duke CGGC An early motivating example … Guillermo Sapiro is a newly recruited faculty member in Electrical Engineering. His expertise is machine learning, particularly in relation to video. Helen Egger is head of the Division of Duke Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. They both have an interest in the autism spectrum in children but have very different, non-overlapping expertise.

25. © 2015 Duke CGGC Different Expertise, Shared interests Guillermo knows how to use data on what humans detect to teach machines how to detect the same thing – perhaps better than the humans. Helen has hundreds of hours of video of young children being screened for autism – which is very hard to detect in young children -- by skilled professionals. They live their professional lives in very different parts of the university, each running their own separate labs.

27. © 2015 Duke CGGC Introductions Are made … and in idea is Born 100’s of videos … … and machines that learn from video to do it even better than humans What if we could design a cheap camera that could track eyes and head movements and identify early indicators of autism?

28. © 2015 Duke CGGC Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration Begins … Within weeks of meeting, they integrated their labs and the work began. They brought undergraduates with different technical skills into their teams.

29. © 2015 Duke CGGC “2015 DUKE SSRI” • At a university such as Duke, where the medical, engineering and social science communities occupy significant shared intellectual and physical space, there is huge potential in exploring the potential collaborations between these communities. • SSRI is in a unique position to catalyze that collaboration. 29

Duke Social Science Research Institute (SSRI): An Overview

Duke University Global Value Chains Center

Duke Social Science Research Institute (SSRI): An Overview