13 September 2024

Call for Code+ project proposals

Call for Project Proposals: Partner with Code+ to Bring Your Research to Life

Are you a Duke researcher with a project that could benefit from a custom software solution? Could a web app, mobile tool, or innovative platform complement or extend your research? If so, we invite you to submit your project proposal for the 2025 Code+ program!

About Code+

Code+ is a 10-week co-curricular coding experience designed for first- and second-year undergraduates passionate about technology. It offers project- and team-based learning, fostering a pipeline of curious, diverse, and skilled individuals ready to lead the future of tech. The program is dedicated to increasing equity, inclusion, and diversity in the tech workforce by creating opportunities for students who may have had limited exposure to the field.

Through collaboration with IT professionals, faculty, researchers, and industry partners, Code+ students engage in meaningful, impactful projects that often result in tools, applications, and methodologies advancing research across various disciplines at Duke. Code+ website: https://codeplus.duke.edu

Why Collaborate with Code+?

Researchers who partner with Code+ benefit from student teams who bring fresh perspectives, enthusiasm, and the ability to create innovative software solutions. By providing students with real-world challenges, you’ll also help shape the next generation of tech leaders.

For example:

In the Polypeptide Helicity and Ensemble Prediction Tool (2024) project, Duke researchers developed a sophisticated model to predict how polypeptides fold based on their amino acid sequences. To make this tool more accessible to the broader research community, a team of Code+ students collaborated with Dr. Terry Oas, Departments of Biochemistry and Chemistry, to build a web platform that allows users to input sequences, rank potential folding configurations by probability, and visualize the most likely structures.

This platform provides an intuitive interface that simplifies the use of the polypeptide folding model, allowing researchers to explore protein behavior without needing specialized computational expertise. This tool is expected to play a significant role in studying intrinsically disordered proteins and in designing semi-rigid linkers for therapeutic proteins targeting diseases like HIV, COVID-19, and cancer.

By making this model accessible through a user-friendly web platform, the project enables researchers around the world to advance their work in protein folding and therapeutic design, supporting global health initiatives and innovative research in the field of biochemistry.

Stakeholders: Dr. Terry Oas, Dr. Scott Schmidler and Dr. Roy Hughes
Learn more: Watch the final presentation | Read more

Similarly, in the Big Data Visualization Using Python for Duke Researchers (2023) project, Code+ students collaborated with the Nicholas School of the Environment and Duke’s Office of Information Technology / Research Computing staff to develop interactive visualizations and predictive modeling tools. These tools were applied to two major datasets: a malaria early warning system in the Peruvian Amazon, and a climate dynamics project connecting sea surface temperature anomalies to snowfall events linked to El Niño/La Niña. Students gained hands-on experience with air-sea climate interactions, semi-real-time data, and global health systems, while contributing to significant research initiatives.

Stakeholders: NSOE researchers William Pan, Mark Janko, and Shineng Hu
Learn more: Watch the final presentation | Read more

Likewise, in 2022, the Visualization Visualizing Household Proximity to Petroleum Storage Tanks project brought together a team of students to collaborate with Celine Robinson, a Ph.D. student in civil and environmental engineering, and Duke’s Office of Information Technology. The team developed an interactive mapping application that displays households' proximity to above-ground petroleum storage tanks, while also assessing the risk of tank failure from natural hazards like hurricanes.

This tool, built as part of Robinson's research on infrastructure failure and supported by an EPA STAR grant, provides communities with crucial information about environmental risks. Users can explore the data by entering an address to view nearby tanks and their vulnerability to disasters. The project not only supported Robinson's dissertation but also demonstrated how visualizations can bridge large-scale data and real-world impact.

Stakeholders: Celine Robinson (Ph.D. student), William Meyerson (Resident in School of Medicine)
Learn more: Watch the final presentation | Read more | Article

These projects highlight how Code+ fosters interdisciplinary collaboration and empowers students to contribute meaningfully to cutting-edge research.

Submit Your Proposal

The 2025 Code+ program is currently accepting project proposals! If you have an idea that could benefit from a software solution, we encourage you to submit your project idea by November 15th.

We’re particularly interested in projects that:

Address real-world issues or needs at Duke, in Durham, or beyond
Engage stakeholders who can work with students throughout the program
Provide students with valuable learning experiences in software development and professional skills
Introduce students to emerging technologies relevant to your work

Each year, we select 10 to 12 projects to be part of Code+. By partnering with us, your project could shape the future of tech, drive important initiatives, and produce tools that benefit the Duke community and beyond.

To submit your proposal, fill out our brief project idea form. For more information about past projects, check out our project archive.

We look forward to hearing how your project can contribute to the Code+ experience! For any questions, feel free to reach out to us at codeplus@duke.edu.