A High School Perspective on Duke Research

A local high school partners with Duke for a hands-on experience translating science to a general audience

Strip of photos from a classroom, lab, and lobby featuring students and researchers. Overlaid over an aerial of Duke campus

Read all the profiles of Duke researchers written by local high school students in the Vertices magazine.

“Sitting on the same floor of Duke’s Medical Sciences Research Building, two scientists are attacking brain cancer from opposite angles.”

So begins a profile of two Duke researchers, Kathy Ayasoufi and Michael Brown, written by local high schoolers Lydia Le and Zephyn Manning.

The students were visiting Duke researchers as part of a science communication class run by Amy Sheck, a teacher and Dean of Science at the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics (NCSSM). A scientist by training herself, Sheck is intimately familiar with the challenges of translating science to audiences beyond your peers.

“The people you talk to are in your narrow field and you talk a certain way,” Sheck says. “For science communication, you have to broaden that.”

In the face of threats like pandemics and pressures on research funding, Sheck says, becoming effective communicators is more crucial than ever for scientists.

For over a decade, Sheck has been teaching the course, using approaches like theater improv to build communication skills for the next generation of research leaders.

Two people stand in front of a computer in a lab setting
Kathy Ayasoufi, left, and Michael Brown show off their research to NCSSM students.

The class culminates in a visit to Duke’s campus, where the students are paired with active researchers who they interview in their labs. Then, they write profiles about the researchers and their work.

Students learn how to avoid jargon, focus on human storytelling, and select good quotes. One example can be seen in the profile of Jenna Moore, a cosmologist who has built instruments for observatories on high mountaintops, captured by students Ankit Biswas and Jack Chen:

“I compare working on top of a mountain to the show ‘Chopped,’ where you’re thrown into an intense environment with limited resources, and you just have to think on your toes really fast.”

A woman in a hard hat squats inside some metallic cage and equipment within a lab.
Jenna Moore builds instruments to study light from the Big Bang.

Partnering with Duke over the years has been essential to give the students a practical experience in interviewing, says Sheck. In addition to support from the communications teams at Duke sharing their journalistic expertise and connecting students with relevant researchers, members of Duke’s undergraduate research journal and science magazine Vertices jumped on board.

The Vertices team flexed their editing muscles and made a new home for the final written pieces by the students. All the stories can be read here.

The partnership also has knock on effects: Past NCSSM students have gone on to work at labs they visited for their interview projects.

“It’s never too early” for researchers to start developing science communication skills, Sheck says. “I would love to see more high schools do this.”