2026 Duke Sanford Graduates: Calvin Rausch

She grew up outside Atlanta in Marietta, the daughter of an art teacher and a businessman, in a household where creativity and practicality lived side by side. Her parents, a mixed-race couple who had moved south from a small college town in New York, raised her and her younger sister with a clear understanding of how the world works and who it often leaves behind.

“They were very blunt with my sister and I, this is the way that the world works and there are inequities,” Rausch said.

At first, her own path seemed headed elsewhere. She planned to study history. She imagined a future in politics. But a trip to Uganda at 17 began to shift something deeper. Working alongside nonprofits for three weeks, she saw how access to basic needs shapes entire communities. While she was there, she received a call offering a presidential scholarship in history.

“I said, ‘That is no longer going to work for me, I think.’”

That decision marked the first of several turns. At the University of Georgia, another came unexpectedly, when a dean asked her to build the school’s first fresh-produce food pantry.

“I had to very quickly educate myself about food security and about access issues,” she said. What started as a project became something more lasting. It gave shape to a question that had been building for years: not just how systems work, but who they serve.

A Path Redirected

The next turn came just as quickly, and with less warning. After graduating from Georgia, Rausch planned to spend two years in Morocco with the Peace Corps, teaching young women technology skills in rural communities. She had been accepted and was preparing to leave when, six weeks before her departure, the opportunity disappeared. Her application had been flagged for review because of a previously unseen technicality; her acceptance was rescinded.

“Six weeks before I was supposed to leave for Morocco, I had to reconsider what my future would look like, and quickly.” she said. The sudden change left her without a plan. It also forced a new decision. “I thought to myself, ‘There’s certainly work to do closer to home.’” She turned her sights toward domestic service.

That decision brought her to Duke through AmeriCorps, where she worked in student affairs managing emergency funding and supporting Feed Every Devil. It also introduced her to the university’s food pantry. It was there, in a more immediate and local context, that her focus sharpened.

“I realized that it’s policy inaction that’s really driving all of this: lack of income, lack of access, lack of resources.”

She helped expand the pantry’s reach, led a graduate and professional student food access survey, and worked to understand how basic needs insecurity affects students navigating higher education. The work built on what she had started at Georgia, but it also deepened her understanding of the systems behind it. By the time she applied to graduate school, the direction felt clear.

“I applied only to Duke,” she said. “I felt confident that either I would continue to do good work through another year in AmeriCorps or I’d get into my master’s program.”

She got in.

Expanding the Work at Sanford

At Sanford, that focus on food access broadened into something more complex. Courses in data analysis and policy evaluation gave her new tools to examine the structural forces behind food insecurity, from global supply chains to federal policy decisions.

“If you had asked me to do any of this two years ago, I would have struggled to even decide how to approach it,” she said. “And now I feel like I can confidently explain, with data, what’s actually happening in food security here and abroad.”

Her work has included analyzing large datasets tied to global food systems and studying how policy decisions ripple through communities. The scale may be different from a campus pantry, but the underlying question remains the same. Why do barriers exist between people and something they need to survive?

“When you think about why someone can’t afford food, it’s typically low wages, low access to transportation, not a lot of economic development where they live,” she said. “Food insecurity is usually the first sign of something bigger.”

She often returns to a simple comparison informed by a love for hiking and nature.

“Frogs are a really good indicator of the health of an ecosystem,” she said. “If you stop seeing frogs, something’s wrong. I think food security works like that. It’s the first to go.”

More Than a Meal

That perspective shapes how she thinks about solutions. Policy matters, she said, but so does something more immediate. At the pantry, that idea takes on a human form. Students come in quietly, often unsure of what to expect. Some return week after week. Over time, relationships form. Rausch has watched classmates arrive while pregnant and later return with newborns in their arms.

“Couples would bring their babies to the pantry and say, ‘You helped us build this life,’” she said. “What a gift.” 

Moments like that stay with her. They also reinforce what first drew her to this work. Food, she said, is more than a basic need.

“Food insecurity stops you from being your best self. Your best parent, your best colleague, your best partner,” she said. “But it’s also cultural. It’s nostalgic. It’s how we show love.” In her own life, that often looks simple.

“My friends joke they can’t come over to my house without leaving with Tupperware,” she said. That instinct to care for people through food has followed her through each turn in her path. The setting has changed, from international service to campus initiatives to policy analysis, but the core has remained steady.

A Message for the Moment

As she prepares to address her classmates at graduation, that clarity shapes the message she hopes to leave with them. It is easy, she said, to feel pressure to solve large, abstract problems.

“I think there’s a temptation to tell individuals to go out and help a million people,” she said. “But that’s overwhelming.” Instead, she returns to something smaller and more immediate.

“What are you doing about what issues matter to you right now? Are you helping your neighbor?” she said. For Rausch, that question carries as much weight as any policy proposal. Systems take time to change. People do not.

“The government is always going to work slower than your village showing up,” she said. 

In that space, between the scale of policy and the immediacy of human need, her work continues to take shape.

And while the path ahead may still shift, the goal remains the same.

Feed people.