Public policy and economics senior Langtian “Ren” Yuan decided to drop her third major in biomedical engineering, but not before her lab work helped identify compounds that might alleviate the powerful cravings of methamphetamine and cocaine addiction.

Now she’s poised to be lead author on a second paper on managing effects of climate change on health in China. She calls the choice of public policy and economics rather than pre-med “the biggest decision of my life.”

Assistant Professor of PPS Donald H. Taylor, Jr. comments on Health Care Reform: Latest in a Series

Assistant Professor of PPS Donald H. Taylor, Jr. comments on Health Care Reform: Latest in a Series

Assistant Professor of PPS Donald H. Taylor, Jr. comments on Health Care Reform: Latest in a Series

Profile of Sarah Cohen, recently appointed Knight Professor of the Practice in Journalism and Public Policy at Sanford's DeWitt Wallace Center for Media and Democracy

David Rubenstein’s $5.75 million gift to the Sanford School of Public Policy will provide endowment for the Program in Environmental and Energy Policy, a speaker series, and student internship support.

Assistant Professor of PPS Donald H. Taylor, Jr. and Frank Hill, Chief of Staff to former North Carolina Congressman Alex McMillan and former U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole.

Assistant Professor of PPS Donald H. Taylor, Jr. comments on Health Care Reform: Latest in a Series

The former institute founded by Terry Sanford celebrates its new status as a school

Assistant Professor of PPS Donald H. Taylor, Jr. comments on Health Care Reform: Latest in a Series

Professor Phil Cook and doctoral student Maeve Gearing write in a New York Times op-ed that ignition-interlock devices can reduce repeat drunk-driving offenses by 65 percent. If they were widely installed, the devices would save up to 750 lives a year, a recent National Highway Transportation Safety Administration report estimated.

Assistant Professor of PPS Donald H. Taylor, Jr. comments on Health Care Reform: Latest in a Series

Assistant Professor of PPS Donald H. Taylor, Jr. comments on Health Care Reform: Latest in a Series

Assistant Professor of PPS Donald H. Taylor, Jr. comments on Health Care Reform: Latest in a Series

Assistant Professor of PPS Donald H. Taylor, Jr. comments on Health Care Reform: Latest in a Series

One of the basic laws of health insurance is that the healthy subsidize the sick, says Assistant Professor of PPS Donald H. Taylor, Jr.

Alison Dorsey, a senior from Woodside, Calif., graduating with a degree in public policy studies, is the winner of this year’s Terry Sanford Leadership Award for her contributions to Duke and the Durham Community.

Sarah Cohen, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and expert on computer-assisted investigative journalism, has been named to the Knight Professor of the Practice of Journalism and Public Policy at Duke University. Cohen, database editor at The Washington Post since 1999, will lead a computational journalism initiative spearheaded by Duke's DeWitt Wallace Center for Media and Democracy (DWC).

The Sanford Institute of Public Policy has established the Susan Tifft Undergraduate Teaching/Mentoring Award in honor of the longtime Eugene C. Patterson Professor of the Practice of Journalism and Public Policy. Tifft, who has taught at Duke since 1998, will step down in July.

DURHAM, N.C.-- Patenting of genes has not resulted in a pattern of exorbitant pricing or restricted access to tests for diseases such as Alzheimer’s and breast cancer, Duke University researchers report in Wednesday’s Nature magazine. However, genetic testing monopolies are creating significant problems, say authors Robert Cook-Deegan, Subhashini Chandrasekharanand Misha Angrist.

Giovanni Zanalda, a visiting assistant professor of public policy and history, teaches a timely course on the history and patterns of economic meltdowns.

Professor of Public Policy and Political Science Bruce Jentleson examines prospects for improved U.S.-Syrian relations. Jentleson and colleagues from the U.S. Institute of Peace and the Stimson Center met with Syrian President Bashar Assad in January for substantive talks on shared interests in the Middle East.

Journalism legend John Carroll, who served as editor-in-chief of the LA Times from 2000 to 2005, spoke about the problems with corporate ownership of newspapers and the difficulties the Internet has created for the industry.

The "digital divide" is the gap between people who have easy access to digital technology and those who don't.  Like technology itself, the digital divide is changing rapidly, and countries differ widely in the their approach to the problem.

In one of his first acts in office, President Obama ordered the closing of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp within a year and the immediate halting the military trials of detainees. The order did not resolve the question of what is to be done with the detainees, which was the topic of a Jan. 22 panel discussion at Duke University.