RACE, GENOMICS, AND SOCIETY
Spring 2026 | Dr. Charmaine Royal
The evolution and propagation of the concept of "race" in humans have influenced and have been influenced by science, medicine, and society. Contemporary basic and clinical research both nullify and reify historical concepts of race, stimulating discourse and disagreement regarding terminology, the social and biological meanings of race, and a host of ethical, cultural, psychosocial, legal, political, societal, and biomedical issues. Genetics and genomics research has been at the forefront of these conversations, given its complicated role in the study and understanding of human biological variation.
Race, Genomics, and Society is an interdisciplinary lecture course meant to engage undergraduates in an integrated analysis of historical and contemporary aspects of the intersection between race and genetics on a global scale. The course engages with topics concerning various application of 'race and genetics' in science, medicine, and society.
In Spring 2026, for their Final Creative Arts Project students were tasked with curating archival exhibits that interrogate course themes, such as health disparities, sickle cell disease, and racialized medicine, rely upon archival materials from the Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library's History of Medicine Collections.
The following framed collages are synthesized versions of students' digital exhibits.
*For a complete list of this project's sources please reach out to Rachel Beth Acker (rachelbeth.acker@duke.edu).
Contributors
Students:
| Will Abell | Evan Hankinson | Harry Pratt |
| Paola Abad | Cameron Haskins | Nya Prejean |
| Haleeyah Adesina | Kate Haver | Dalys Ragland |
| Cooper Antonucci | Jennifer Hu | Sierra Remington |
| Isabella Arango | Leo Hu | Sarah Jane Schulze |
| Layla Axam | Diya Jain | Hailey Schwartzberg |
| Victoria Ayodele | Natalie Jones | Andrew Shi |
| Abigail Bellot | Riley Kim | Ryan Stretch |
| Ethan Castellino | Runzi Ma | Max Tendler |
| Isabel Chang | Bria Maddox | Henry Terrell |
| Ashley Coburn | Angel Martinez | Jonathan Torres-Tomas |
| Pascale Delk | Jessica Marques | Hannah Tuck |
| Selma Elrefai | Olivia McConnell | Lucas Wagner |
| Jada Ennin | Jaya Mendiratta | Emily Wang |
| Dakota Farmer | Shay Meseck-Schick | Julia Wareham |
| George Fenimore | Sophia Miller | Justin Woo |
| Emma Fulton | Chad Murphy | Naomi Wordofa |
| Alicia Gordon | Gavin Ockert | Timmy Wu |
| Ishrit Gupta | Carmen Pastrana | Jack Zhang |
| Ameer Haidary | Katelyn Peña |
Teaching Team:
Charmaine Royal, PhD
Trisha Kibuigi, MSc
Rachel Beth Acker
