Duke University researchers are working across disciplines to understand exactly how rising temperatures damage bodies, cities, and ecosystems.

A feature published Monday, May 19 by the Duke School of Medicine spotlights more than a dozen faculty and graduate students investigating heat's cascading effects. Their work is supported in part by a $4.5 million award from The Duke Endowment, announced in late 2025, that funds the Climate and Health Research Initiative (CHeRI) over four years. CHeRI unites the School of Medicine, Duke Global Health Institute, Nicholas School of the Environment, and the Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment & Sustainability.

Extreme heat routinely ranks as the deadliest weather hazard in the United States, according to the National Weather Service

"We don't have 30 or 40 years to go down the normal process of discovery that eventually leads to something," said Robert Tighe, MD, associate professor of medicine and CHeRI's director. "These are things that are happening right now."

CHeRI held its first "Big Idea" Symposium on Wednesday, January 22, 2026, awarding pilot funding to projects including a rural Carolinas heat early-warning system, a study of trauma recovery and PTSD risk from extreme heat, and a mapping effort for melanoma vulnerability in North Carolina.

The research spans continents. Nishad Jayasundara, an environmental health researcher at the Nicholas School, is investigating a mysterious epidemic of chronic kidney disease striking agricultural workers in Sri Lanka, India, and Central America. In some Nicaraguan regions, an estimated one in three men has end-stage kidney disease. Closer to home, doctoral student Elizabeth Rojo conducts field visits with North Carolina farm workers during heat season, partnering with the N.C. Farm Worker Health Program.

Ashley Ward, director of the Heat Policy Innovation Hub at Duke's Nicholas Institute, noted that nighttime temperatures may pose the greatest danger. She told the Associated Press: "Your body needs a reprieve. [If] you don't get that overnight, we start the next day at a deficit."

The Hub's NOAA-funded "Bridging Divides" project maps heat's hidden economic costs at the congressional-district level, with additional interactive maps planned through 2027.

On campus, engineers are tackling data blind spots. David Carlson, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at the Pratt School, and doctoral student Zach Calhoun found that the hottest urban neighborhoods often have the fewest weather stations, because personal stations cluster in wealthier areas. Heat danger in low-income communities goes undercounted.

Other lines of inquiry include assistant professor Asiya Gusa's work on how warming temperatures help environmental fungi adapt to infect humans, and Valerie Sabol's planetary health initiative at the School of Nursing, where clinicians have begun screening surgical patients for heat-related medication risks.

At the Duke Marine Laboratory, researchers found that small reef-dwelling crabs help certain corals survive heat waves. NOAA estimates coral reefs support a quarter of all marine life while covering just 1% of the ocean floor, with U.S. reef fisheries valued above $100 million. The Bridging Divides project's next round of interactive heat-impact maps is expected by mid-2027.