Ensuring diverse faculty are hired at Duke is at heart of new $2 million gift
The gift by Shari Eberts ’90 and husband Ken will establish a named professorship in Trinity-Natural Sciences as part of the Duke Science and Technology initiative.
When Shari Eberts ’90 took science classes at Duke in the late 1980s, she recalls that all of her professors were men. “It was sometimes difficult to see myself in that role.”
Duke’s faculty has grown more diverse since then and with a $2-million gift Shari and her husband Ken Eberts are helping to ensure progress continues. Their gift will establish a named professorship in Trinity-Natural Sciences as a part of Duke Science and Technology—a historic faculty-hiring and fundraising effort designed to support, attract and retain top faculty in the sciences at Duke. The Eberts’ gift will be directed to support a junior faculty position in the sciences.
The initiative grew from conversations that began several years ago about strategically enhancing science at Duke through hiring top scientists and fundraising to support them. President Price assembled the Advancing Duke Science and Technology Task Force in 2018, a group of academic leaders, faculty, trustees and undergraduate and graduate students tasked with addressing how these priorities might be implemented.
