Dishita Agarwal

Academic Interests

Neuroscience, Public Policy, & Computer Science 

Fun Fact

I have a twin brother that goes to Chapel Hill!

I came to Duke after surviving a rare cardiac condition and ten surgeries—enough to see up close how health isn’t decided in hospitals alone, but in boardrooms, courtrooms, and markets most patients never touch.

At Duke, I study Neuroscience and Public Policy with a minor in Computer Science, but I see myself less as a student and more as someone testing how systems can be rebuilt piece by piece. As Co-VP of Duke Business Behind Health, I’m shaping The New Health Order, our 2026 conference on where finance, tech, and policy push healthcare’s future. As a Student Government Senator, I redesigned campus paratransit for 15,000+ students, rallied 12 departments to expand services for students with health needs, and secured Duke’s first medical-sensitivity training for campus leaders.

Beyond campus, I’ve advised Google on AI x sustainability market strategy, co-authored research in JAMA, presented to the U.S. Office of Population Affairs, and serve as the only youth member in a national medical network of 95+ MD/PhDs. I’ve surveyed 8,000+ students with health needs, conducted nanoscience research, and helped scale Meals on Wheels donor retention strategy.

What ties it all together isn’t a single discipline but a single principle: where institutions cause harm, I work to turn them. I’m not just looking to build alternatives at the margins. I want to rewire the core. To be a fresh lever, creating new legacies inside even the oldest systems...one frank question at a time.

In my free time, I’m usually crafting (fiber arts, Legos), writing poetry and creative nonfiction, behind a camera, traveling, with family, or in Cameron Indoor (I made it to 11 games my freshman year!). Looking ahead, I plan to keep crossing silos: bringing the clarity of journalism into business, the language of finance into medicine, and the precision of science into policy—until institutions built to outlast us finally begin to work for us.

What do you like about being a SPIRE Fellow?

SPIRE is a space to let go. Goats and pumpkins. Turtle necropsies by the sea. Off-key Bruno Mars karaoke. Bench painting in cozy jackets. The SPIRE community feels like a big hug. In The Cancer Journals (my go-to read this past year), Audre Lorde reflects on the struggle to feel fully connected to herself after a loss. I relate—not through cancer, but through the way the “keep pushing” mentality of academia can dull one’s capacity to fully experience joy and even pain. SPIRE—a community that embraces both aspiration and well-being—is a place where I can grow and heal without sacrificing any part of myself, while helping others do the same.