The 2026 MIDS Capstone Symposium brought the energy, curiosity, and real-world impact that define Duke’s Master in Interdisciplinary Data Science program. It was a chance to see what happens when students, data, and partners come together after a full year of collaboration.
Throughout the symposium, graduating MIDS students showcased the capstone projects they’ve been building since the fall, working side-by-side with companies, nonprofits, healthcare organizations, and research teams. These assignments are real problems that partners care about, from forecasting sales and analyzing financial risk to improving healthcare systems and building more trustworthy AI.
One team partnered with The Conservation Fund to classify forest stands across the Southeast, while another worked with BNY to explore real-time foreign exchange forecasting using large language models. There were projects focused on healthcare innovation, like developing digital twins for ICU simulations and tools to streamline electronic health records, alongside others tackling big societal questions like how access to school meals impacts student outcomes in North Carolina.
Students weren’t just applying existing tools; they were building new ones. From multi-agent systems for financial compliance to computer vision tools that improve accessibility in short-term rentals, these projects pushed beyond the classroom into work that feels immediately relevant.
The capstone experience is a core part of MIDS for a reason. Over the course of a full academic year, MIDS students are encouraged to practice their skills in a way that mirrors industry and research environments. They meet regularly with partners, navigate evolving project goals, and deliver both insights and usable code. It’s challenging, collaborative, and incredibly rewarding.
For partners, it’s a chance to explore problems they may not have the bandwidth to tackle internally and get to know (and often recruit) some of Duke’s top data science talent. For students, it’s a bridge between learning and doing, where technical skills meet communication, teamwork, and real impact.
The symposium itself felt like a preview of what’s next in data science: interdisciplinary, applied, and deeply connected to the world beyond our campus.
Check out photos from the event.
PROJECTS
Compass Coffee
Daily Grind: Online Multi-Item Sales Forecasting
Students:
Leo Chen
Lynn Kremers
Ziyan Wang
Mentor: Dawn Strickland
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The Conservation Fund
Forest Stand Classification in the Southeastern United States
Students:
Nathan Bush
Nruta Choudhari
Nakiyah Dhariwala
Yixiao Wang
Mentor: Kyle Bradbury
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Citizens Financial Group
How can banks effectively monitor exposure to the impacts of climate risk on U.S. P&C Insurance Markets?
Students:
Leonard Eshun
Jianing Guo
Jay Liu
Jipu Liu
Ramil Mammadov
Mentor: Alex Fisher
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Duke University Department of Psychology & Neuroscience
Cross-Cultural Analysis of Dream Reports and Mental Health
Students:
Sizhe Chen
Zhanylai Turatkhan kyzy
Xiangyu Wang
Mentor: Paul McKee
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Duke University Department of Surgery
Digital Twins for Counterfactual Simulation in Intensive Care Units using continuous-time modeling and Multi-modal State-Space Models
Students:
Binqian Chai
Zhihao Chen
Alejandro Paredes La Torre
Syed Huma Shah
Chenyao Yu
Mentor: David Banks
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Citizens Financial Group
Marketing Optimization Models
Students:
Nzarama Kouadio
Mu Niu
Mona Saeed
Shiyue Zhou
Mentor: Alessio Brini
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Becoming rentABLE
Streamlining Accessibility Verification in Short-Term Rental Platforms: A Computer Vision–Based Review Assistance System
Students:
Aniwan Ailina
Zishan Shao
Uzoma Uwazurike
Mentor: Lauren Nichols
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Neuberger Berman
Embedding-Based Topic Clustering for Interpretable Financial Text Analysis
Students:
Shawn Lee
Hung-Chun Lu
Danish Maknojia
Chris Moreira
Su Zhang
Mentor: Yue Jiang
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BNY
Decoding the Dollar: Real-Time FX Forecasting with LLMs
Students:
Skye Augsorn
Adil Gazder
Jahnavi Maddhuri
Atreya Tadepalli
Zihan Xiao
Mentor: David Ye
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Duke TRUST Lab
Beyond the Black Box: Building Trustworthy AI for Wearable Sleep Trackers
Students:
Jenny Chen
Eric Ortega Rodriguez
Rishika Randev
Jenny Wu
Mentor: Brinnae Bent
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GSK
AI-Driven Compliance Risk Intelligence for Life Sciences
Students:
Arko Bhattacharya
Vishesh Gupta
Jennifer Li
Yirang Liu
Si Min Loo
Mentor: Jana Schaich Borg
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BNY
ComplAI: Towards a Scalable Multi-Agent System for Automated Financial Compliance Reporting
Students:
Hongyi Duan
Mobasserul Haque
Zijian Huang
Afag Ramazanova
Tursunai Turumbekova
Mentor: Hengzhong Liu
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Duke University World Food Policy Center
Does Access to School Meals Improve Student Outcomes? Evidence from Community Eligibility Provision Participation in North Carolina
Students:
Peter de Guzman
Meron Gedrago
Kayla Haeussler
Diego Rodriguez
Fan Xu
Mentor: Andrea Lane
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Duke Department of Medicine
Auto-eHRmonize
Students:
Lilah DuBoff
Cindy Gao
Yueyao Hu
Javidan Karimli
Mentor: Jana Schaich Borg
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ClearPath
Multi-Agent Investment Advisory Committee
Students:
Eleanor Jiang
Zixiao Tan
Peter Yang
Kaisen Yao
Ziyu Zhou
Mentor: David Ye