The University of Notre Dame’s Joyelle McSweeney, the William P. and Hazel B. White Professor of English, has won the Windham-Campbell Prize for her work in poetry.

McSweeney, who chairs the Department of English in the College of Arts & Letters, was one of eight writers to win the prestigious annual global literary award, administered by Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, which recognizes exemplary work across fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and drama.

Winners receive $175,000 to support their work and focus on their creative practice free from financial concerns. With annual prize money exceeding $1.4 million — and total prize money awarded over the past decade at over $20 million — it is one of the most significant prizes in the world.

McSweeney was recognized by the prize’s anonymous selection committee for her “complex, powerful, and contemplative ecopoetic writing, exploring nature, trauma, style, and resilience through the ‘necropastoral’, whilst subverting our understanding of contemporary language.”

“Joyelle McSweeney’s wildly imaginative, rageful poems turn decay into sustenance and go on defying death by thriving on rot,” they wrote.

McSweeney has written nine books, her most recent being the 2024 poetry collection Death Styles. Her 2022 double poetry collection, Toxicon and Arachne, was named a finalist for the Kingsley Tufts Award and won the Shelley Memorial Prize from the Poetry Society of America. McSweeney wrote the first part during the years leading up to the birth of her third daughter, Arachne, and wrote the second part in the spring following Arachne’s brief life and death.

She attributes her work to an “obsession” over the idea that what we think is over is indeed not over and that she writes her poetry to come alive in the moment of performance.

“Poetry, for me, is a quest to find out why we have to live this way, what the gods might have in store for us, how we can get back what we lost, and what we can give to each other,” she said.

In addition to the Windham-Campbell Prize, McSweeney was a 2022 Guggenheim fellow, won a Modern Language Association translation prize, an American Academy of Arts and Letters award, and is a 2025 Jeopardy champion. She also led Notre Dame’s Creative Writing Program for four years.

“This prize recognizes the body of work I’ve created during my 20 years here at Notre Dame, in which I’ve been inspired and supported by so many colleagues in every discipline,” she said. “In this sense, this prize also recognizes Notre Dame’s unwavering support for research and creativity across science, humanities, and the arts. We need every route to Truth, and we need to do it together.”

Victoria Erdel Garcia ’19 was known on campus as the girl obsessed with fighting trafficking. She was drawn to the issue because victims’ stories rarely sustained attention — and too often elicited only sympathy. For Erdel Garcia, change has to go further than that. She just had to find a way to get people to listen. So, she started a podcast.

In 2017, the summer before her junior year at Notre Dame, Erdel Garcia started The Trafficking Dispatch, a four-season podcast featuring interviews with activists and survivors of trafficking. The podcast had short episodes targeted at college-aged students who could listen during their busy days, and the episodes covered all forms of trafficking, from sex trafficking to labor trafficking, organ harvesting, child soldiers, and more.

The platform Erdel Garcia had created reached beyond campus and to survivors who wanted to share their stories, most of Erdel Garcia’s guests being people who reached out to her. During her time, she interviewed several survivors, and, in one case, a former trafficker.

“I wanted to show that there are real people, real stories behind all these atrocities,” Erdel Garcia said. “I feel like a lot of times people spread awareness, and then they just stop. I really wanted to equip people with information that would actually compel them to act.”

Sharing survivors’ stories comes with great responsibility — something Erdel Garcia admitted made her nervous at first. She wasn’t sure how to approach such sensitive material. In those early moments, she held onto a quote from professor and activist Su’ad Abdul Khabeer: “You don’t have to be a voice for the voiceless, you just have to pass the mic.”

Erdel Garcia tries to live by that idea and has been since she was young, starting simply with paying attention.

Erdel Garcia was born in Bremen, Indiana, but soon after her birth her parents moved the family to Portugal. Both Ecuadorian-American, her parents worked as missionaries and taught in international schools. She credits her early exposure to different cultures with shaping her sense of cultural awareness.

It was before she started kindergarten when her family returned to the United States and officially settled in Mishawaka, where she spent most of her childhood. She first visited Notre Dame’s campus at six years old.

“I obviously was too young to understand college and Notre Dame’s reputation and academic rigor, but I just remember seeing all the Gothic architecture and how much it reminded me of Portugal,” she said. “I felt at home from the first time I visited campus, and when we were leaving, I told my parents I was going to go there someday.”

Later, when Erdel Garcia was thirteen, the founder of the Starfish Project — a non-profit jewelry organization that employs and supports women escaping trafficking and exploitation in Asia — visited her church to speak about the group’s mission.

“In school, I was always taught that slavery was a thing of the past, but this was the first time that I heard of human trafficking and how it is still an ongoing issue,” Erdel Garcia said.

This sudden awareness of an issue so pervasive yet largely unspoken stuck with her, quietly shaping the direction of her studies until it eventually became her focus. She wanted to understand trafficking more deeply and resolved to be part of the solution.

Erdel Garcia was accepted to Notre Dame through the QuestBridge Scholars Program. She initially began on the pre-health track, imagining she’d work in the medical field, before switching to sociology and adding a minor in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL).

“I knew that I wanted to help other people. I just didn’t know how to do that,” she said. “The only job that immediately came to mind was a doctor.”

Her academic interests shifted when she realized her heart was in the humanities and that there are countless ways to help people across disciplines, some of which she had already encountered.

By her sophomore year, she had her sights set on working for Starfish Project and reached out to the organization’s CEO to ask about internship opportunities.

At the time, she was hoping for a remote position and had no plans of leaving Indiana. But that changed when she was offered an internship in East Asia.

With the help of Notre Dame grants, Erdel Garcia spent the summer of 2018 in East Asia with the Starfish Project, immersing herself in a new culture while building relationships with survivors. She got to meet women where they were and listened to their stories firsthand.

“I really had a great time exploring a new culture, taking all their public transportation,” she said. “It was amazing, but there were also heavy moments.”

When she returned to Notre Dame, Erdel Garcia immersed herself even more deeply in studying human trafficking, now informed not only by survivors’ stories but also by having witnessed the circumstances they endured.

By her senior year, her podcast had reached listeners in 100 countries. It also led to an invitation to present at the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize Forum. The podcast was later featured in the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network’s 2018 Youth Solutions Report under the Sustainable Development Goal of Peace and Justice.

Even as her work took her beyond South Bend, Erdel Garcia stayed grounded in campus life. A proud Pasquerilla West resident for all eight semesters, she found a home in the dorm’s community. She also tutored in the Writing Center, drawing on her TESOL minor to support international students.

Additionally, she served as a research assistant in the Kellogg International Scholars Program, working under former history and Africana studies professor Mariana Candido to study the historical roots of human trafficking and slavery in Angola. She carried that work into her senior honors sociology thesis, which examined human trafficking in Asia.

By graduation, it seemed everything was lining up for Erdel Garcia to return to Starfish — this time not as an intern, but as a full-time English teacher. She had even spent her senior year studying trauma-informed teaching methods in preparation for the role. But a week before graduation, visa laws changed, and she was suddenly no longer eligible.

Instead, Starfish offered her a different position in marketing and social media. In the role, she helped generate content about the organization’s products while telling survivors’ stories in a trauma-informed and sensitive way, focusing on their journeys rather than their traumatic pasts.

“In a kind of unplanned way, running that podcast in college really helped prepare me for that role, so I kind of had this informal training. My thesis was also about how we present topics of human trafficking on social media, so it all accidentally prepared me for that exact role,” she said.

Though her job was different from what she had originally planned, Erdel Garcia eventually rose to an e-commerce senior manager position and found the work deeply fulfilling.

“I know advertising is all about sales, but at the end of the day, it was different at this company. At this company, every sale quite literally directly leads to hiring more women,” Erdel Garcia said. “It was really motivating to be able to see a number and then know exactly how many women would be able to change their own lives because of it.”

However, six months into her role at Starfish, the pandemic upended everything. Erdel Garcia returned to Mishawaka and began working remotely as the company weathered financial strain. To make extra income — and because she genuinely loved it when she was on campus —she picked tutoring back up.

Around that same time, she was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The diagnosis helped her understand her own academic journey and inspired her to support students who struggled in similar ways.

“I felt like a lot of things in my life started making sense retroactively, and I started reflecting back on my time, specifically working at the Writing Center at Notre Dame,” she said.

Many of the students who came to her had ADHD, and she’d used the techniques that had worked for her, not yet realizing she had it, too. After her diagnosis, she felt better equipped to support her students, now understanding more fully the challenges they faced.

“I started working with students and professionals who had ADHD or autism, just helping them communicate their own ideas clearly,” Erdel Garcia said. “It was something I started doing, honestly, out of survival at first, but then, over time, it just became this thing that I kept doing and still do to this day.”

After nearly five and a half years at Starfish and tutoring on the side, Erdel Garcia began craving something in-person — and a change of scenery. She left the organization and moved to Memphis, Tennessee. In Sept. 2024, she joined financial planning and wealth management firm Fish and Associates as a client services associate. Her long-term goal is to become a certified financial planner.

Fish and Associates’ mission is similar to Starfish Project in that they aim not only to support their clients financially but to equip them for long-term stability and success. As a women-owned and operated firm, they focus on serving the underserved, particularly women and members of the LGBTQ community.

Though the field may seem different, Erdel Garcia sees a clear overlap between her past and present work — particularly when it comes to financial empowerment.

“I want to help women,” she said. “My core mission is to help women achieve financial literacy, so that they can achieve financial freedom.”

It is important to Erdel Garcia that she carries the same morals and values with her, no matter the role.

Looking back on her own experiences, she encourages current Notre Dame students to lean into the resources and opportunities the University provides.

“If you want to make your little slice of the world a better place, Notre Dame has so many connections and so many opportunities to help you do that,” she said. “Don’t shy away from finding those opportunities because I promise you they exist.”

Originally published by Amanda Dempson '26 at weare.nd.edu, a digital publication from the Notre Dame Alumni Association telling stories of Domers doing good in the world, on March 03, 2026.

With a significant new investment, the University of Notre Dame’s College of Arts & Letters is launching the Human Neuroimaging Center to drive innovation in interdisciplinary neuroscience and uncover how brain networks shape the remarkable capacities of the human mind.

The center’s work explores enduring questions in the psychological and brain sciences, including how the biological foundations of the mind enable learning, resilience, and flourishing — capacities central to the fullness of human life.

Led by Aron Barbey, the Andrew J. McKenna Family Professor of Psychology, who joined the Notre Dame faculty last fall, the center advances an integrated vision of modern neuroscience grounded in scientific rigor, humanistic insight, and ethical responsibility.

“Neuroscience opens new ways of understanding the human mind and the lives it shapes,” Barbey said. “Advances in brain imaging now allow us to see the brain with remarkable precision, revealing the constellation of networks that underlie perception, memory, language, and thought. Once uncovered, insights from neuroscience move beyond the laboratory, shaping how learning is defined, how mental illness is understood, and how responsibility and care are imagined.”

Barbey and his research team will utilize advanced neuroimaging techniques — including high-resolution functional and structural MRI, diffusion tensor imaging, and computational modeling — to investigate the foundations of human intelligence.

He joined Notre Dame’s Department of Psychology after faculty appointments at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. At Illinois, he held multiple leadership roles at the Beckman Institute, including director of the Center for Brain Plasticity. He later served as the Mildred Francis Thompson Professor and director of the Center for Brain, Biology, and Behavior at Nebraska.

His previous research — supported by more than $30 million in funding from the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and several other organizations — has explored how intelligence emerges from the network organization and dynamics of the human connectome, applying methods from cognitive neuroscience, experimental psychology, and computer science.

“At Notre Dame, I believe we have a remarkable opportunity to lead in neuroscience because of the breadth of expertise on our campus — not only in psychology, and increasingly in neuroscience, but also in the humanities and social sciences.” – Aron Barbey, Andrew J. McKenna Family Professor of Psychology

Ultimately, his work aims to deepen understanding of the neural foundations of intelligence and to advance innovations in cognitive enhancement, neurorehabilitation, and biologically inspired artificial intelligence. Barbey’s research investigates how the brain’s finite architecture gives rise to the flexibility of human intelligence — our capacity to learn, adapt, and solve the diverse problems we face in life.

The Human Neuroimaging Center, co-located with the Veldman Family Psychology Clinic at 501 N. Hill Street in South Bend, will support a growing group of Notre Dame human neuroscience faculty, including three junior faculty who will arrive this fall, with more new hires planned for the coming years.

Barbey, his team, and other neuroscientists will use a state-of-the-art Siemens Magnetom Cima.X 3 Tesla whole-body MRI system to produce structural, functional, and metabolic brain imaging, enabling characterization of the human connectome with remarkable precision.

“Neuroscience offers a profound new lens through which we can view the human experience — one that enriches our existing strengths in the humanities, arts, and social sciences, offering new ways of developing deep insights about how we think, feel, and interact,” said Kenneth Scheve, the I.A. O’Shaughnessy Dean of the College of Arts & Letters. “At the same time, this center will help us build meaningful scientific collaborations across campus in a way that establishes Notre Dame as a leader in the holistic study of the human mind.”

The center is organized around seven research themes that investigate how brain networks support the capacities that shape human life — and how this knowledge can be used with care and responsibility:

• Neuroscience of human intelligence — How do differences in the organization and dynamics of the human connectome shape memory, attention, reasoning, and problem solving?

• Neuroscience of lifespan development — How does connectivity evolve from childhood through adulthood, and how do experiences — including education and embodied practices such as handwriting — influence developmental trajectories?

• Neuroscience of belief systems — How do executive, social, and affective brain networks support belief systems and moral decision making, including participation in social, ethical, and religious practices?

• Neuroscience of mental health — How do changes in brain network function contribute to mental health and neurodevelopmental conditions, and how can insights into these changes advance diagnosis and new approaches to treatment?

• Neuroscience of traumatic brain injury (TBI) — How does TBI disrupt and reorganize the network architecture of the human connectome, and how can neuroimaging guide better diagnosis and treatment protocols in student-athlete and military populations?

• Neuroscience of human performance in military service — How do multiple dimensions of performance — across cognitive, physical, and neurobiological measures — change over the course of military service, and how can long-term measurement help strengthen readiness while supporting the health and resilience of service members?

• Neuroscience of brain health promotion — How can modern scientific interventions — including cognitive training, non-invasive brain stimulation, mindfulness meditation, physical activity, and nutrition — shape brain connectivity to promote brain health and resilience across the lifespan?

  

“The mission of our neuroimaging center is to advance neuroscience through rigorous research that is attentive to the broader human questions that inspire it,” Barbey said, “seeking not only to understand the complex and dynamic networks of the human brain, but also to ensure this knowledge benefits the individuals and the communities that we serve.”

Through these themes, Barbey sees ways for neuroscience to engage directly with broader questions of human development, belief, health, performance, and responsibility — ensuring that scientific advances are interpreted in light of history, culture, and enduring questions of human meaning.

“At Notre Dame, I believe we have a remarkable opportunity to lead in neuroscience because of the breadth of expertise on our campus — not only in psychology, and increasingly in neuroscience, but also in the humanities and social sciences,” he said. “The brain is more than a biological system; it underlies how we think, learn, and relate to one another. Its activity is shaped by biology and experience — including culture, history, family, and community. For that reason, neuroscience matters not only for what it reveals about the brain, but for how its insights enrich learning, promote health, and enable flourishing — in service of human dignity and the good we share.”

Ken Kollman has always been fascinated by politics. But he never wanted to work in it — he just wanted to study it.

Initially, he believed that meant a career path in journalism, so he majored in English and government while he was an undergraduate at the University of Notre Dame. But while working on his senior thesis, he became enthralled with the possibilities of diving into research.

“I realized how much I liked getting really deep into something and devoting a lot of time and attention to something to try to get it right,” he said. “Research has a way of being incremental — you find questions you're interested in, and you pursue them.”

Throughout his career, Kollman has followed the winding road of his interests through both American and comparative politics. Along the way, he became a leading scholar in both subfields, fundamentally reshaping how scholars think about party systems and interest group politics.

After 32 years at the University of Michigan — where he served in leadership roles including associate department chair, director of graduate admissions, acting vice provost for international affairs, and director of the Center for Political Studies — Kollman joined Notre Dame this semester as the Dr. William M. Scholl Professor of Politics in the Department of Political Science and the Keough School for Global Affairs.

“One of my colleagues at Michigan said that Notre Dame just seems like it’s on fire — in a good way,” Kollman said. “And it’s fun to join something like that.”

The author of ‘classics’

A recurring theme throughout Kollman’s research has been the relationship between citizens and their governments — specifically, what they want their governments to do and what their governments actually do.

Early in his career, he examined American political organizations’ work in elections and lobbying and how that ultimately pressures the government. This led to his first book Outside Lobbying: Public Opinion and Interest Group Strategies (Princeton University Press, 1998), and several journal articles that tackle how public opinion shapes political parties, which then shape governments. Eleven years after its publication, the book was recognized by a Southern Political Science Association panel as one of the “classics” in the field of interest group politics.

Later, Kollman turned his attention to federalism, examining which levels of government are more or less responsive to people and how different levels of government do or don’t work together. This time, he looked beyond the U.S., incorporating perspectives from the European Union, Canada, and India, as well.

“If you don't study other countries, you don't see the great variety and the way that countries structure their governments and their elections and their constitutional processes,” he said.

Kollman wrote several books and articles on the subject, with The Formation of National Party Systems: Federalism and Party Competition in Canada, Great Britain, India, and the United States (Princeton University Press, 2004) being his most prominent. In it, Kollman challenges longstanding theories of party system size and nationalization.

One external reviewer described the work as “a classic, widely read and cited text that is a milestone in the study of party systems.” It won the American Political Science Association’s (APSA) Leon Epstein Outstanding Book Award from the Political Organizations and Parties Section in 2005, and also won the 2024 Martha Derthick Best Book Award from the APSA’s Federalism and Intergovernmental Relations section, which is given to the best book published 10 or more years ago that made a lasting contribution to the study of federalism and intergovernmental relations.

“This book exhibits why Kollman is the rare scholar who has excelled in both the American and comparative politics subfields of political science,” said Geoffrey Layman, a Notre Dame professor of political science and chair of the department. “Here, Kollman displays a deep understanding of American politics — but by examining the U.S. in the context of a comparative analysis of the American, Canadian, British, and Indian party systems, he not only provides keen insights into party politics in countries outside the U.S., but uncovers insights into American politics that would not have been possible by focusing solely on the U.S.”

Hard work for the public good

Now, Kollman has focused his work on the fundamentals of global election operations and political parties. In his research, he links socially driven issues such as climate change, vaccinations, and crime rates to election data. He recently co-authored Dynamic Partisanship: How and Why Voter Loyalties Change (University of Chicago Press, 2021), which includes a detailed analysis of data from the U.S., Australia, Canada, and the U.K on how and why voters’ allegiances to political parties shift.

To help him compile and understand these vast topics, Kollman relies on massive data sets, including the Constituency-Level Election Archive, the world’s largest repository of election results data, which he cofounded.

“From tiny Caribbean countries all the way up to India, we have all the data on pretty much almost every country that's ever had an election,” he said.

Kollman has received numerous awards for his groundbreaking work, including the 2024 Samuel Eldersveld Career Achievement Award from the APSA’s Political Organizations and Parties Section.

And he’s far from being done.

Outside of the four books he’s published, Kollman has also written 24 refereed journal articles, 11 edited volume chapters, and six editions of a single-authored textbook on American politics. He is also the editor of multiple editions of a reader for American government classes and co-editor of a book on computational models in political economy research and a book on area studies in American social science.

Kollman has also been involved in securing significant external grant funding, receiving more than $47 million in external grants as a principal investigator or co-principal investigator. And he’s been a key contributor to the compiling and archiving of several major publicly available datasets, including the Constituency-Level Election Archive, the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems, the Subnational Geospatial Data Archive, and the National Neighborhood Data Archive.

“Developing publicly available datasets is generally underappreciated in terms of scholarly visibility,” Layman said. “But it is very hard work, and it provides very important public goods to the scholarly community.”

The opportunity to explore and expand that cultivation of data assets, plus the University’s commitment to tackling pressing political issues through the Democracy Initiative, ultimately drew Kollman to Notre Dame.

“I'm interested in being part of a process of institutional development and building new infrastructure that will help students, faculty, and other constituents of Notre Dame do their work better,” he said. “Notre Dame’s approach to higher education, the approach to the role of the university in society, has always resonated with me. And what Notre Dame offers to students, faculty, alums, the community, and the people who benefit from their research is very, very attractive to me.”

Rebecca Maloy, the J.W. van Gorkom Professor of Music and director of Sacred Music at Notre Dame, and Alexander Jech, a faculty member in the Department of Philosophy, were among the 84 scholars nationwide to receive the competitive awards in 2026.

During her NEH fellowship, Maloy will work on a monograph exploring the Old Hispanic rite, tentatively titled “Sounding the Saints in Early Medieval Iberia.” Jech will write a monograph that wrestles with the totality of Søren Kierkegaard’s seminal 1843 work, Fear and Trembling.

Maloy has studied medieval liturgy and chant, specifically Hispanic liturgy, for more than 15 years. She examines how liturgy and music influenced ideas about saints and sainthood on the Iberian Peninsula, a region with traditions of liturgical commemoration distinct from other parts of the medieval world.

Drawing from liturgical manuscripts, she will show how the text and melodies of Old Hispanic liturgy shaped the identities, beliefs, and agency of medieval communities.

For Maloy, studying worship practices from the past provides a fresh perspective on how worship can be done in the modern world. Medieval Christians understood the importance of music in worship, especially how belief could be shaped and amplified by the beauty of a melody.

“While earlier scholars have doubted whether chant melodies relate to the semantic content of their texts, the answer here is a resounding ‘yes!’” Maloy said. “The liturgies were designed to imprint key saintly values by making a maximum impact on the memory and senses.”

Maloy’s research has implications beyond her subfield, as studying devotion to the saints gives medievalists key insights into what mattered in medieval societies and how those priorities influenced historical events.

Maloy approaches her work having personally experienced the power of music on belief as director of Sacred Music at Notre Dame. The graduate program equips organ, choral conducting, and voice students with professional performance experience and theological training so they can become future music leaders in churches, concert halls, and schools and universities.

“One of the principles behind SMND is the idea that music can serve as a channel and a means of evangelization,” she said. “It’s very exciting to me to study how that was done in the Middle Ages,” she said.

Jech, meanwhile, will write a monograph tentatively titled “The Paradox of Faith: A Literary-Philosophical Commentary on Fear and Trembling,” which seeks to fill a gap in existing scholarly analysis of Kierkegaard’s most important and difficult work.

Existing commentaries and analyses of Fear and Trembling either operate at an introductory level or focus on only a subset of its themes, arguments, and ideas, Jech said, and these works almost always approach the philosophical, not the literary, side. After noticing this gap while preparing to teach a course on existentialism many years ago, Jech devoted significant time to considering how its parts worked together and how he could approach writing a detailed commentary that considers it as a whole.

“I realized there was a need to consider how it blends together literary and philosophical methods in pursuit of a religious topic,” Jech said. “The philosophical side has been so central that it’s been difficult to explain how it achieves its intellectual lightning strike — you need to consider both perspectives to do that.”

With the fellowship, Jech will spend time in Copenhagen, exploring archives of Kierkegaard’s manuscripts and notes to gain insight into his thought process while writing Fear and Trembling. Those notes also reference periodicals and other documents from Kierkegaard’s era that Jech intends to track down while in Denmark as well as talking with scholars of the Danish Golden Age about Danish poetry and the impact of Romanticism on 19th-century Danish culture.

An extended treatise on the nature of faith as demonstrated in Genesis 22, in which God commands Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac, Fear and Trembling challenges “Sunday School definitions” of the concept and wrestles with what it means to truly believe in God. Jech hopes his book will be a means by which scholars of philosophy and literature, as well as educated lay people, can more thoroughly engage with the way Kierkegaard explores that concept.

“The paradox of faith, for Kierkegaard, has to do with fulfilling the passion of faith and not just understanding how pursuing it leads to being fulfilled,” he said. “Being faithful can mean that what you are doing seems to be undermining everything — Abraham raises the knife above the child of promise — but that’s the heart of the paradox. You try to do something, but you also seem to undermine it by how you pursue it, by depending on God for it. Abraham is the most intense version of this, but for Kierkegaard, that paradox applies to anyone who tries to live religiously, from Abraham to the person who simply tries to follow the Sermon on the Mount.”

The ranking is based on academic reputation, employer reputation, and research impact. Out of 150 universities included, Notre Dame’s score of 92.2 bested the University of Oxford (89.2), Harvard University (89.1), Durham University (88.7), and Boston College (88.3).

“To be ranked No. 1 in the world for two years in a row is a momentous accomplishment for which all our faculty and staff deserve great credit,” said Fr. Khaled Anatolios, the John A. O’Brien Professor of Theology and chair of the department. “As a department, we take the measure of our own performance less from external rankings than from fidelity to our mission. Nevertheless, these consistently top rankings demonstrate that our fidelity produces scholarly results that are literally second to none in commanding international admiration.”

Guided by the ideals of “faith seeking understanding” and bringing together “things new and old,” the department has six principal areas of research — moral theology, history of Christianity, liturgy, biblical studies, systematic theology, and world religions and world church.

In addition to offering a doctorate and four master’s degree programs, Notre Dame’s theology department maintains a strong commitment to undergraduate education by supporting more than 800 theology majors or minors and teaching the theology courses that all Notre Dame students take as part of the University’s Core Curriculum.

Leading scholars of the Irish language from across Europe and North America gathered in central London last week for In ÉiNDí 2026, an academic seminar conducted entirely in the Irish language and hosted at Notre Dame London.

According to the seminar’s organizer, Brian Ó Conchubhair, professor of Irish language and literature at the University of Notre Dame, the gathering is an important moment for Irish-language scholarship in Britain.

“To our knowledge, this may be the first academic conference hosted in the UK that is conducted entirely through Irish,” Ó Conchubhair said. “It reflects the growing international community of scholars who use Irish as a language of research and intellectual exchange.”

Hosting the seminar in London reflects the global reach of Irish-language scholarship. As an international center for the study of Ireland and its language, the University of Notre Dame has long played a leading role in advancing Irish studies beyond Ireland. In ÉiNDí 2026 represents an example of this commitment, bringing scholars together in a global setting to strengthen Irish as a language of research and intellectual exchange. The seminar's organizer, Brian Ó Conchubhair, is a fellow of the Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies in the Keough School of Global Affairs and a leader of the Irish Language Initiative in Notre Dame’s College of Arts and Letters.

The two-day seminar featured keynote lectures from leading Irish-language scholars, including Máire Ní Mhaonaigh of University of Cambridge, Pádraig Ó Siadhail of University of St Mary’s University Halifax, and James Little of the University of Cyprus. Presenters also included scholars from universities across Ireland and beyond, with representatives from every major Irish university participating in the program.

Beyond textual scholarship, the seminar also explored how Irish-language sources can be used for deeper understanding of broader social and historical questions. Presentations examined topics ranging from the emotional lives reflected in medieval texts to Irish-language responses to global political issues, including reactions to apartheid in South Africa. These topics show that the Irish language has always been a medium for responding to global human rights issues and internal psychological states.

The seminar also addressed contemporary concerns facing Irish-speaking communities. For example, sessions explored topics such as language use in health care settings and the ways in which Irish speakers navigate both Gaeltacht (Irish-speaking) communities and the wider English-speaking world.

Discussions highlighted how the field is evolving to reach new generations of scholars and students. Digital tools and resources, such as the Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language (eDIL), are making centuries of Irish-language material more accessible, helping to connect traditional Irish Studies with the research habits and expectations of a digital-native Generation Z.

“The timing of the event in 2026 is a significant milestone,” Ó Conchubhair said. “With sessions tracing the history of Irish programs from 1972 to 2026, the seminar offers a moment to reflect on more than fifty years of institutional progress. It is both a celebration of survival and an opportunity to think strategically about the future of the language in a globalized world, ensuring that Irish remains a vibrant, intellectual, and research-driven language on the world stage.”

Learn more about Irish Language Initiatives at Notre Dame. 

Originally published by Joanna Byrne at london.nd.edu on March 17, 2026.

Titled “Endowed by Their Creator: Catholicism, the Declaration of Independence, and the American Experiment at 250,” the symposium will take place Thursday, April 9, 2026, on CUA’s campus in Washington, D.C. The gathering is intended to serve as a premier scholarly forum during the semiquincentennial year, convening leading academics, jurists, and public intellectuals to consider the philosophical and theological foundations of the American experiment in constitutional self-government.

“This anniversary provides an opportunity not merely for celebration, but for serious intellectual examination,” said Phillip Muñoz, director of the CCCG. “The Declaration advances claims about human equality, rights, and moral accountability that remain foundational to our political life. The Catholic intellectual tradition has long engaged these same questions. Our hope is to foster a careful and rigorous conversation about their relationship and their continued significance for constitutional government.”

Joel Alicea, a professor at CUA and the director of CIT, underscored the importance of hosting the symposium in the nation’s capital.

“At 250 years, we are called to reflect more deeply on the principles that have shaped the American experiment,” Alicea said. “By bringing scholars of Catholic thought into dialogue with the Declaration’s arguments, this symposium aims to clarify the moral and philosophical foundations of our constitutional order and to explore the resources available for its renewal.”

The daylong program will begin with Mass at 9:15 a.m. in St. Vincent Chapel, followed by three academic panels and two keynote conversations.

The first panel, “The Declaration and the Catholic Intellectual Tradition,” will feature Bradley Lewis of CUA; Vincent Phillip Muñoz of Notre Dame; and D. C. Schindler of the John Paul II Institute, moderated by Michael Promisel of CUA.

A lunch keynote and fireside chat will follow, featuring Robert P. George of Princeton University in conversation with his former student, Fr. Henry Stephan, O.P. of Notre Dame.

The second panel, “The Declaration and Constitutional Interpretation,” will include Kevin Walsh of CUA; Judge Whitney Hermandorfer of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit; and Charlie Capps of Arizona State University, moderated by Alicea.

The third panel, “Catholic Social Thought and the American Experiment,” will feature Russell Hittinger of CUA; Kenneth Grasso of Texas State University; and Ryan T. Anderson of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, moderated by CUA’s Sarah Gustafson.

The symposium will conclude with a private dinner for students and alumni of the Notre Dame and CUA programs with Brett Kavanaugh, associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Kavanaugh, who was nominated to the Court by U.S. President Donald Trump, took his seat on Oct. 6, 2018.

All sessions will be recorded and made available for later viewing to ensure broad access for those unable to attend in person.

Launched in 2021, the Center for Citizenship and Constitutional Government at Notre Dame seeks to cultivate thoughtful and educated citizens by supporting scholarship and education concerning the ideas and institutions of constitutional government. For additional details, including registration information, visit constudies.nd.edu/america250.

Contact: Anna Bradley, CCCG Assistant Director, 574-631-8050 or abradle4@nd.edu

Originally published by Anna Bradley at constudies.nd.edu on March 05, 2026.

University of Notre Dame President Rev. Robert A. Dowd, C.S.C., announced today the appointment of Rev. Gregory P. Haake, C.S.C., as vice president for mission engagement and Church affairs, effective July 1. Father Haake, an associate professor of French and Francophone studies and the religious superior of the Holy Cross priests and brothers at Notre Dame, will succeed Rev. Austin I. Collins, C.S.C., who is stepping down to return to teaching in the Department of Art, Art History and Design and to his work as a sculptor. Father Collins will also serve as special adviser to Father Dowd.

“Knowing that he will build on Father Austin’s many accomplishments as vice president over the past five years, I am delighted that Father Greg has agreed to take on this important leadership role,” Father Dowd said. “Father Greg is widely admired for his scholarly achievements, his deep commitment to Notre Dame’s mission, and his pastoral gifts. He is uniquely situated to work closely with me and with colleagues across the University to steward and deepen Notre Dame’s Catholic mission and to forge strategic partnerships both at the University and beyond in service of the Church. I am truly grateful to both Father Greg and Father Austin, my brother priests in the Congregation of Holy Cross, for their unfailing support and dedicated service.”

A specialist in 16th-century France, Father Haake focuses his research on the intersection of religion, politics, and literature — specifically on how discourse can be used to achieve ideological and religious goals. As the religious superior of the Holy Cross priests and brothers at Notre Dame, he has served as an ex officio Fellow and Trustee of the University and as a member of the President’s Leadership Council.

“I am honored by Father Bob’s invitation to serve as the vice president for mission engagement and Church affairs,” Father Haake said. “Notre Dame’s Catholic and Holy Cross mission contributes deeply to what makes this University special and embeds us firmly within the life and tradition of the Church. On both fronts, Notre Dame has unique opportunities, and I look forward to helping the University to fulfill its mission on campus and beyond.”

Father Haake received both a bachelor’s and a Master of Divinity degree from Notre Dame, a Master of Arts from Middlebury College, and a doctorate from Stanford University. He was ordained a priest of the Congregation of Holy Cross, the University’s founding order, in 2007, and he joined the faculty at Notre Dame in 2015. Father Haake is a priest-in-residence in Coyle Hall.

Father Collins was appointed vice president for mission engagement in 2021. Among many other accomplishments, he has played an important role in building relationships with Church leaders in the U.S. and around the world and developing programs for faculty and staff aimed at deepening their understanding of Notre Dame’s Catholic mission. Prior to serving as vice president, Father Collins served as religious superior of Holy Cross priests and brothers at Notre Dame and as an ex officio Trustee and Fellow of the University from 2015 to 2020, and as chair of the Department of Art, Art History and Design from 1997 to 2003. Father Collins has been a faculty member since 1985.

Contact: Carrie Gates, associate director of media relations, c.gates@nd.edu, 574-993-9220

Originally published by Andrew Barlow at news.nd.edu on March 03, 2026.

This semester's Medieval Institute alumni spotlight features Michael Waddell, associate professor at Saint Mary's College, where he holds the Edna and George McMahon Aquinas Chair in Philosophy. He is also the founding director of the institution's Autism Studies program. Waddell completed his Ph.D. in medieval studies at Notre Dame in 2000. His dissertation was titled “Truth Beloved: Thomas Aquinas and the Relational Transcendentals,” and was written under advisor Ralph McInerny, beloved past director of the Medieval Institute.

We asked Waddell to share some thoughts on his work at Notre Dame and beyond.

What initially interested you in the Middle Ages?

My interest in the Middle Ages was born during my time as an undergraduate at Cornell College. I was a history major and took a course on “Europe from 400 to 1600” with William Carroll, a Catholic intellectual historian (and Notre Dame alum). That was where I first encountered the writings of people like Augustine and Aquinas. I still remember getting migraines from trying to read Aquinas in that class!

I found the way that these thinkers worked to reconcile and integrate faith and reason to be fascinating. When I decided to pursue an academic career, I was torn between studying philosophy and studying theology. Then one day, while I was studying in the basement of the library, Professor Carroll came bounding over to me — which was quite a sight, with his 6-foot-7 frame — and told me that he had solved my problem: If I went into medieval studies, I could study both philosophy and theology!

Since I was already studying history and literature, in addition to philosophy and theology, the idea of an interdisciplinary program was very attractive to me. And I've always been kind of a history nerd, so the prospect of being able to gain a deep knowledge of the historical context in which great thinkers were working was really attractive, too. I was fortunate to get offers from Notre Dame, the Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies at the University of Toronto, and Boston College. But a visit to Notre Dame (facilitated by Professor Carroll) made it clear to me that Our Lady's university was where I wanted to go to study the Middle Ages.

“People often ask me whether I ever used my training as a medievalist in my work with autism studies, and I tell them that I use it every day: It’s precisely in virtue of my training as an interdisciplinary scholar and my study of St. Thomas’s writings about human nature that I am able to work with psychologists, speech therapists, occupational therapists, behavioral therapists, and physicians to provide autism expertise to students today.”

What initially interested you in the thought of Thomas Aquinas?

From the very beginning, I appreciated Aquinas’ desire to integrate faith and reason. To be honest, though, I was not initially a fan of his particular approach to doing it. In fact, I usually found myself arguing against him, and I was really more interested in working on Augustine than Aquinas. The more I tried to argue with Aquinas, though, the more I realized that he was usually right and I was usually wrong. So I decided that maybe I should try to be his student rather than trying to refute him. As the old saying goes, “If you can't beat ’em, join ’em.”

When did you become interested in autism studies, and why?

My twin daughters were diagnosed with autism right after they turned 2 years old. Once our family got our balance with that — managing 80 hours of therapies per week, etc. — I couldn't help thinking about autism from philosophical and theological perspectives. And I soon realized that the ways in which people, including therapists, thought about human existence in general had a deep impact on how they responded to autism.

As an interdisciplinary scholar, I also noticed that the various professions that aimed to help people on the spectrum were incredibly siloed, and their inability to communicate effectively across professional lines often had a negative impact on the therapeutic support they were able to provide.

From those two observations, I developed a vision for an interdisciplinary approach to autism education grounded in a Catholic anthropology. People often ask me whether I ever used my training as a medievalist in my work with autism studies, and I tell them that I use it every day: It’s precisely in virtue of my training as an interdisciplinary scholar and my study of St. Thomas’s writings about human nature that I am able to work with psychologists, speech therapists, occupational therapists, behavioral therapists, and physicians to provide autism expertise to students today.

What was it like working with Ralph McInerny as a student, and what was it like working with him as a peer?

I would never say that I became a peer to Professor McInerny. He was an intellectual giant, and he had few true peers in that regard.

Working with him as a student was an extraordinary opportunity, though. I only wish that I had been more prepared to take full advantage of his erudition and wisdom than I was as a twenty-something. When I began working with doctoral students at Villanova — about five years after completing my Ph.D. — I grew to have a deeper understanding of what an extraordinary mentor he was, and I really looked forward to talking more with him about the kinds of issues I was wrestling with at that stage of my career. Unfortunately, he died before our relationship was able to go to that level, and I've always regretted that lost opportunity.

How have the people you met and the experiences you had at the Medieval Institute influenced you as a researcher and educator today?

My experiences and relationships at the Medieval Institute were absolutely formative for me as a scholar and as a person. I was blessed with the opportunity to learn not only from some of the world's leading experts in medievalia, but also from other graduate students who have gone on to become leading scholars in their own right. And I still count many of those people amongst my best friends. I'll always be grateful to the MI for the education and the career it gave me, but especially for the people it brought into my life.

Originally published by Medieval Institute at medieval.nd.edu on March 02, 2026.

Natalie Magura is determined to make the most of her undergraduate years.

Right now, that means the junior is soaking up all she can from the city of London. She’s exploring British museums in her art history class and learning causes and effects of Brexit in her political science class, then roaming the city streets in her free time.

But when she was a first-year, Magura’s appetite for edification didn’t take her across an ocean — just across disciplines. She started out as just a sociology major, learning how to scientifically study social structures and relationships.

“Then I recognized there were more pieces to the puzzle,” she said.

Adding majors in economics and political science gave Magura a more complete view of critical issues — take incarceration, for example. Through sociology, she learned about inequalities within the prison system and the effects of mass incarceration. Through economics, she learned how disparities in wealth translate into disproportionate incarceration rates. Through political science, she learned about the public policy environment behind the prison system.

To finish the puzzle, Magura just needed a career plan that could interlock with her wide-ranging interests. It took her a few semesters — and deep engagement with career development opportunities through the Beyond the Dome and Consulting Connect programs — to figure it out, but she started with the confidence that the skills she’d learn would make her successful in any field.

“Fitting all of those pieces together solidified my decision to move forward with three majors,” she said. “I’m constantly exposed to different lenses in my learning, no matter what the subject may be.”

Finding a career fit with three majors

To find her professional path, Magura began with the same strategy she used with her majors — more is more. She joined every club that sounded interesting and attended as many career discernment events as her schedule allowed. That brought her to Beyond the Dome, which would become a main character in her Notre Dame story.

A career development program exclusively for undergraduates in the College of Arts & Letters, Beyond the Dome empowers students to explore career paths while giving them opportunities to break into their desired industry. As a first-year, Magura took advantage of the program’s employer interaction events, one of which introduced her to the host of her upcoming summer internship: Bain & Company, one of the country’s top consulting firms.

“In high school, I had no idea what consulting was,” Magura said. “Beyond the Dome introduced me to the industry and matched it with the skills I had as an Arts & Letters student.”

Networking with a Bain employee at a Beyond the Dome workshop was the first step in Magura’s journey to an internship with Bain, but it wasn’t what sealed the deal. Along the way were more career workshops, resume refinement, interview coaching, and connections with upperclassmen.

Magura also joined Consulting Connect, a Meruelo Family Center for Career Development program that prepares students for consulting jobs through resume and interview prep and networking opportunities. What Magura found the most helpful, though, was the case interview training offered by students who had already gone through the recruitment process.

Business consultants provide guidance and solve complex issues on a wide variety of projects. So on top of traditional job interviews, consulting firms use case interviews to assess applicants’ critical thinking abilities with sample business problems, such as “How should I go about opening a new coffee shop?”

To solve a case — usually within a strict time limit — an applicant needs to generate a logical plan of action, requiring knowledge of business principles and a decent portion of math. Consulting Connect helped her learn how to ace a case through mock interviews with feedback from peers and actual consultants.

After she got the basics down, Magura realized the unique strengths that had taken her problem-solving to the next level.

“With practice, anyone is going to be able to solve a case — it’s not calculus,” she said. “But Arts & Letters students have an inherent creativity in the ways they think about problems. You’re not only thinking about it like a business problem; you’re almost thinking about it like a comprehensive essay.”

Focusing on giving back

Now that Magura’s found the right path for her, she wants to help other students do the same. To that end, she’s taken on responsibilities as co-president of Consulting Connect and chief executive officer of Beyond the Dome.

“I’m making sure I’m always a resource and an accessible mentor,” she said. “I’m very proud to be the support that I received as an underclassman.”

“Having a community that outlasts the time I’m actually at school is super valuable to me. For that, there’s no better place than Notre Dame.”

Magura is excited by the way both programs continue to develop and expand opportunities for students, especially Beyond the Dome’s new LaunchPoint Projects. In an immersive semester-long experience, students work with a company or nonprofit on a real business problem, and their recommendations will help inform senior leaders’ decision-making. The projects give students deep, practical experience, as well as connections to a managing director or senior partner at an influential corporation like McKinsey & Company.

As a certified connoisseur of career programs, Magura knows it can be intimidating to start getting involved, especially for students like her first-year self, who had no prior connections to Notre Dame. But her advice is just to show up — to clubs, to information sessions, to whatever sounds exciting.

“Everyone at these events is someone who’s a little bit lost or confused, and using these resources is definitely a way to get that extra lift if you need it,” she said.

Putting herself out there as much as possible was how Magura found her path and her community on campus. But now that she’s in the latter half of her time at Notre Dame, she’s focusing less on building new things and more on enjoying what she’s already built — taking electives, time for intentional growth, and long walks during golden hour.

And when she graduates next year, Magura knows that what she’s found at Notre Dame isn’t going away.

“Having a community that outlasts the time I’m actually at school is super valuable to me,” she said. “For that, there’s no better place than Notre Dame.”

Stepping into Kate Marshall’s office is a bit like stepping into a one-room museum, with antique typewriters, artifacts of early cinema, and book-making tools among the pieces on her shelves.

“The objects I keep around me represent what I’m really excited about in humanist work,” she said. “There’s often an element of materiality — I’m interested in how texts are made and what media go into making them.”

This feature is part of a College of Arts & Letters story series called “Office Hours,” which provides a glimpse into the personal and professional lives of Arts & Letters faculty through their workspaces around campus. This installment highlights Marshall, the Thomas J. and Robert T. Rolfs College Professor in the Department of English, whose research and teaching focus on the interactions of media, technology, and genre in contemporary literature.

In this interview, Marshall discusses important pieces in her office that inspire her and are relevant to her writing, her roles as associate dean for research and strategic initiatives and director of the Franco Family Institute for Liberal Arts and the Public Good, and her personal life.

Marshall’s answers have been edited for clarity and conciseness.

Q: What do you want people to feel when they enter your office?

A: I want them to feel welcome and excited about research in the college.

The objects I keep around me represent what I’m really excited about in humanist work. I also have books related to the Franco Institute’s research theme, which this year is attention. For example, I have a book by one of the speakers of our symposium, How to Do Nothing by Jenny Odell, over here. I also have some books in the office that are related to the future of the humanities, something that we talk and think about in the Institute.

I think that it is important to pair your intellectual projects with the administrative work you do. I’m writing a book about the novella and reading short fiction in the age of attention, so I have a lot of very short books on my bookshelf — the things that I’m trying to think about as I continue my own research.

Q: What are the stories behind your typewriters?

A: These three are all very special to me. This is not my entire typewriter collection, but these are three key examples. They all have stories — and I think they look good.

They’re from different eras. The black typewriter, the Underwood, is an early 20th-century typewriter, and they were made in the same factories that were manufacturing weapons for World War I. The way in which media technology and military technology have gone together, I think, is an interesting part of its story.

The seafoam-colored typewriter is called a portable Hermes, Hermes being the winged messenger. It’s heavy, but you could carry it around. I really like it for the literary connection. The portable Hermes is the typewriter fictionalized in Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr. Ripley — the one he used to forge identities.

The red typewriter, which is called the Valentine, is made by the Italian company Olivetti, and it’s an icon of 20th-century design. The case and the red, molded plastic typewriter have a really important design history, too.

When I moved to South Bend in 2009, there was still an open typewriter repair shop on Mishawaka Avenue. It’s since closed, but it made me feel like this town was a good home for me.

Q: When you’re sitting here, stuck with one of your projects, where do you look to get your mind rolling again?

I always look to the bookshelf. There are more novellas on this shelf than I could possibly write about in a single book, and I love to rearrange and move through them.

There’s a stack of the books that have been published in the book series I edit with the organization Post45 in the past few years. The theme of this series is literature and culture after 1945 — not necessarily explicitly American, but in the wake of the American century as a larger political and economic formation.

My second book, Novels by Aliens, came out a few weeks after I started the position as director of the Institute, so when I finally got to hold that book in my hands, I had just started working here in this office. The thesis of the book is that in the 21st century, there’s a desire for ways of seeing the world that are nonhuman. This is motivated by environmental concerns and ideas about agency that go beyond what has traditionally been understood as human.

I look at different interdisciplinary ways that this desire manifests in contemporary fiction and at its literary history. This is largely a story about genre, and one that I’ve continued to explore as I write my new book about the novella.

I also have a pile of all the objects I’ve found mudlarking. Mudlarking is when you walk along a river, specifically the Thames River in London, and you look for objects that wash up from the water that had been deposited or lost for years, even hundreds of years. You learn how to understand the tides, and you have to learn how to identify the things you find. I’ve found some clay pipes from different eras. One of them is Victorian and has a cricket bat design on it. Another is from the 18th century, and one is even older, probably from the 16th or 17th century. Two other pieces I have here are a fragment of a medieval shoe buckle and a fossilized tooth of either an older form of livestock or even some kind of larger animal — some of these teeth have been identified as belonging to mammoths.

Q: Your office has so many items from the past — what’s your newest piece?

The most recent addition to the office would probably be a very kitschy figurine of the statue of Athena from Nashville, Tennessee. There’s a huge replica of the Parthenon and the statue of Athena in Nashville, so I picked that up when I was giving a lecture at the humanities center of Vanderbilt University last year.

That’s next to a tiny Adirondack chair, which is probably a little bit older but is maybe my most valued possession in the office. I teach in the summers at a place called the Bread Loaf School of English. Most of the students in the program are high school teachers, and I teach literature there. I live in Robert Frost’s farmhouse, and I experiment with different ways of teaching literature that I bring back to my classroom here, too.

When you are awarded a chair at Bread Loaf — I was named the Frank and Eleanor Griffiths Chair in 2019 — you’re presented with a teeny-tiny Adirondack chair as a memento of that award. It lives here as a reminder of the institution and the other people across the country who also have this award.

Q: Do you have anything here from your students?

A: There are a few objects that have been made by my students over the years. That yellow and blue print is something made on the letterpress. It’s an excerpt that the student typed up from The Professor’s House by Willa Cather, which I taught in a graduate seminar. I also have this tiny work of book art that a student made.

The framed newspaper clippings were a gift from my first doctoral student. I started working with this student as her dissertation chair the year I came here, and she wrote a terrific dissertation about radio and modernism. And then when she left to take her job in New York, she left that with me as a memento of our time together.

It’s not everything, but keeping these objects in my Institute office helps me remember why we’re doing the work that we’re doing — supporting research, thinking about students, thinking about how we talk about the value of this work and really support it, both on campus and off. It’s nice to have some of those documents of students and ideas as a reminder for the why — why we do this work in the College.

Q: What serves as a good reminder in your office?

This image from an episode of The Twilight Zone called “Time Enough at Last,” which is the current working title for my book on the novella.

That picture is of the actor Burgess Meredith. In the show, his character is someone who’s a bookworm and feels like he doesn’t have any time to read. His home life doesn’t allow him to read, and neither does his job at a bank — his wife and supervisor get mad at him when he’s reading instead of working or doing anything else. So he’s beset with all of these problems with reading.

Then there’s a huge nuclear explosion or some kind of apocalyptic catastrophe, and he has locked himself in the bank vault to have time to read so no one can find him. He survives, and he comes out into a wasteland. There’s no one else in the world.

And then he finds the library, and this is the moment from which the title of the episode comes. He’s stacked up all the books in what order he’s going to read them in, and he says, “Books, books! Time enough at last!” And that’s exactly when he breaks his glasses.

That was the image that popped into my head when I got offered my job in the English department at Notre Dame in 2009. I wondered what was going to happen next, and I had so much joy, but I also knew that it would be something I shouldn’t take for granted.

Q: What’s changed since you moved to this office?

English professors are fairly solitary. You teach, you work with students in classrooms, and you work with students in your office, and then you occasionally come together as a department or work on a committee. The rest of the time you are writing and reading alone.

But when I started working in this institute, everything about my life was both enriched by and dependent on all of the amazing people who work here. I spend five days a week in this office, and it’s a very alive, very permeable space. We all fit in a pretty tight space where we work with undergraduates, we work with graduate students, we occasionally meet members of the community, we work with faculty. So we have a few different teams: people who work on faculty projects, a team that works on the student projects, a really amazing outreach and events team that’s helping us do a lot more of our public-facing work as well as shepherd our fellowship programs. It’s a very collaborative workplace.

It’s really extraordinary to be at a university that is investing in the humanities and the liberal arts. Humanities, arts, and social science research are central to Notre Dame’s mission not only for faculty, but also for graduates and undergraduates. That is absolutely galvanizing, but none of it is possible without an extraordinary group of people to make it happen — and the people in the Franco Institute are just really making it happen.

The University of Notre Dame announced today that its Wilson Sheehan Lab for Economic Opportunities (LEO) will serve as the national evidence partner for Right at Home, a new cross-sector initiative led by Destination: Home to stop homelessness before it starts. LEO will provide the research backbone for the initiative — working alongside pilot communities to generate rigorous evidence, measure outcomes, and share what is learned to strengthen and scale homelessness prevention nationwide.

Backed by $77 million in new funding support from various benefactors, Right at Home aims to keep more than 10,000 households at high risk of homelessness stably housed in 10 pilot locations across the country over the next five years. By scaling an evidence-based prevention model, Right at Home sets out to prove that homelessness prevention works and is replicable nationwide, building the case for national prevention policy and funding.

Across the country, homelessness rates are rising, and housing costs continue to strain renters. Half of American renters are unable to afford their housing costs, and economic pressures are pushing more people into crisis every day. Once someone becomes homeless, challenges compound quickly, making prevention a critical component of any meaningful response.

Right at Home builds on a proven prevention model that provides financial assistance and case management to support families on the brink of losing their homes, but before they become unhoused, and takes it a step further by expanding that model across the country. That model was spearheaded by Destination: Home and Sacred Heart Community Service in Santa Clara County, California, and evaluated by LEO researchers.

“We have a moral obligation to take evidence to impact,” said Rachel Fulcher Dawson, interim managing director and head of policy and impact at LEO. “When we find strong evidence that something is effective, it’s not enough to publish a result. We have to make sure that evidence gets used by replicating and scaling what works, so communities across the country can benefit.”

LEO’s study found that individuals who received financial assistance through Santa Clara County’s Homelessness Prevention System were significantly less likely to become homeless even a year later. The model also demonstrated strong cost effectiveness, with LEO researchers finding that every $1 invested saved almost $2.50 in benefits to the community.

By intervening earlier, this approach has helped nearly 44,000 people locally avoid the profound trauma of homelessness and has reduced the need for far more costly public interventions after housing has been lost — such as shelters, emergency health care, and other crisis services.

“The single most obvious solution to homelessness is stopping it before it starts, yet our country continues to respond only after people fall into crisis,” said Jennifer Loving, CEO of Destination: Home. “We have proven that targeted homelessness prevention works locally, and now it’s time to prove that this can work all across the country. We should never let people, in the worst moments of their lives, suffer even more.”

In the U.S., most homelessness intervention programs only focus on responding to individuals and families once they have already lost their housing, with far fewer efforts aimed at targeting them early enough to prevent the loss of housing in the first place. The result is a backlog of overwhelming needs and cascading issues. Right at Home and its partners are hoping to intervene at a crucial turning point in the individual and family’s life in order to bring the right amount of help at the right time. LEO’s expertise will step in to provide evidence to impact.

The 10 pilot communities covered by the initiative include cities, counties and tribal nations, and represent areas with varied economic conditions and housing markets, including both rural and urban regions. Communities were selected based on showing urgent need, spanning diverse geographies, demonstrating strong on-the-ground and cross-sector collaboration and offering clear pathways for future local public-private investment.

So far, Right at Home community partners include Alaska (Alaska Coalition on Housing and Homelessness); Asheville Region, N.C. (Asheville-Buncombe Continuum of Care); Atlanta, Ga. (Partners for HOME); Austin-Travis County, Texas (Ending Community Homelessness Coalition); County of San Mateo, Calif.; Denver-Adams County, Colo. (Metro Denver Continuum of Care); Miami-Dade County, Fla. (Miami-Dade County Homeless Trust); and Minnesota (Minnesota Tribal Collaborative Pathways to Housing), with two additional locations to come.

To stand up the Right at Home support systems locally, organizers will rely on the Homelessness Prevention System Toolkit, co-developed by LEO, Destination: Home and Results for America. This toolkit provides the technical assistance foundation for testing and adapting this model in all the selected locations. Right at Home, in conjunction with technical assistance partner Homebase, will use it to implement this approach in the new contexts while building the evidence base for national policy change.

Each Right at Home replication site will provide flexible financial assistance to address immediate needs such as rent, utilities or other urgent housing-related costs. It will also include supportive services such as legal assistance or other interventions that help remove barriers to housing stability, all of which will be delivered through local community partners and systems. Assessments will also be conducted to ensure families are connected to the appropriate Right at Home assistance and that needs are matched accordingly. Each pilot site will receive a minimum of $5 million over three years to stand up their local program.

Working with Right at Home and the pilot communities, LEO will test and rigorously evaluate the impact of rapid, flexible financial assistance, and inform the case for a national prevention policy.

“We already have strong evidence that targeted prevention can keep people housed,” said David Phillips, LEO director of research. “Right at Home is a chance to take those results to impact at a national scale. By working alongside communities, we can learn what it takes to deliver strong outcomes in different places — and share what works so leaders can strengthen and sustain prevention over time. Most importantly, we can help more people stay housed before a temporary crisis becomes homelessness.”

LEO's work aligns with Notre Dame's Poverty Initiative, a University-wide effort to create a world intolerant of poverty by expanding knowledge about how to solve it.

The Right at Home initiative is supported by a coalition of cross-sector partners, including Cisco, Homebase, Notre Dame’s LEO, Silicon Valley Community Foundation and Sobrato Philanthropies. To date, Destination: Home has secured $77 million in funding to support the Right at Home initiative. Funders include The Audacious Project — a collaborative funding initiative housed at TED that encourages the world’s greatest changemakers to dream bigger — Cisco, Sobrato Philanthropies, and the Valhalla Foundation.

The Right at Home initiative anticipates all pilot sites to begin implementation by January 2027, with some sites starting as early as this fall.

Destination: Home, a public-private partnership working to end homelessness, leads the Right at Home initiative. Through a collective-impact model, the nonprofit convenes and collaborates with community stakeholders to address the root causes of homelessness and drive systemic change in Silicon Valley and beyond. Using a data-driven, human-centered approach, Destination: Home advocates for effective policies, incubates new programs, and invests in strategies that connect more homeless neighbors to stable housing and prevent homelessness before it begins.

Contact: Tracy DeStazio, assistant director of media relations, 574-631-9958 or tdestazi@nd.edu

Originally published by Kathryn Desai and Tracy DeStazio at news.nd.edu on February 24, 2026.

Mike LaMena ’95 was always envious of his fellow Notre Dame students who knew what career they wanted to pursue from the start. He, like many, thought the ladder to success was a linear one.

But over time, LaMena discovered that career paths often have many loops and lateral steps.

LaMena, who majored in English, is now the chief executive officer of Wealthspire, an independent financial firm that serves clients across the wealth, institutional, and retirement markets. Collectively, the organization manages or advises on more than $580 billion in assets and is a dynamic leader in the independent wealth space.

Previously, he held positions as president and chief operating officer at Bronfman Rothschild, president and COO at HighTower, and executive director at Morgan Stanley.

Clearly, LaMena knows business, especially for someone who didn’t focus on business as an undergraduate. What was central to his success, though, was a passion for and skill in translation — connecting components together and synthesizing the best way to achieve people’s goals.

“When someone doesn’t know where to start, we listen,” LaMena said. “It’s not just technological and spreadsheets — advisors help their clients, whether that’s business owners or families, navigate life and learn how to make their life or business meaningful. Being a trusted advisor means we provide comfort and guidance.”

Finding his fit

During his time at Notre Dame, LaMena found himself envisioning multiple opportunities and perspectives, but eagerly pursued his interest in English.

He didn’t want to be a one-dimensional student, though. He had a work-study job and was involved with interhall sports and student government, serving as class treasurer.

As he thought about his future, he liked the idea of giving back and gravitated towards teaching. After graduation, he volunteered as a ninth-grade teacher in the Bronx for the Marist Brothers. He felt fortunate to have received financial support to attend Notre Dame and wanted to pay it forward in his community.

After his teaching stint, LaMena went to Wall Street, where he fell in love with financial planning. The experience was eye-opening as he discovered how financial advisors focused on helping clients achieve their goals and lead their most impactful and fulfilling lives, and LaMena wanted to integrate his stewardship mindset into his personal and professional life.

A Notre Dame classmate helped him interview with Morgan Stanley’s private wealth management group, and LaMena found the financial business to be surprisingly human. Although a large part of the job requires financial familiarity, other traits are also essential — including interpersonal and effective listening skills, which he honed through his liberal arts education.

“There’s a value in generalists in a world that’s increasingly specialized,” he said. “I know how to ask good questions, how to synthesize information from several sources, and my greatest impact is in connecting the dots.”

LaMena’s 14-year career with Morgan Stanley also pivoted at points, from a client-facing position to a more behind-the-scenes one in technology. In that role, he developed technological skills and was eventually asked to move to Asia to lead and build a new business and technology platform, which proved to be a period of extreme professional growth.

“It was basically a blank sheet of paper,” he said. “Being exposed to different cultures and working to build a business from the ground up was the first time I was given the space to envision and create a better model to serve clients. This period really helped me become comfortable taking bigger risks.”

Growing confidence

As LaMena’s career progressed, he became more comfortable with taking professional risks and recognized that growth occurs outside one’s comfort zone.

Although it didn’t happen overnight, LaMena attributes part of that ease to being fostered by the course Shakespeare in Performance, taught by Paul Rathburn, then-professor of English and founder of the Notre Dame Shakespeare Festival.

“Life is a gift. Explore, follow your passions. Have a reflective mindset and follow that.”

In the class, students gained a deeper understanding of the words and meanings of the plays by performing scenes. The premise intrigued LaMena, but he doubted his skills and continuously asked himself, “Why am I doing this? I’m going to have to actually act out scenes.”

LaMena stuck with the course and became more comfortable speaking in public and performing. Eventually, he performed in several plays while at Notre Dame, and he still draws on those skills in his work today.

“As I gained confidence to be comfortable with public speaking, I realized that growth is its reward,” he said.

Through his Arts & Letters education, LaMena was pushed outside his comfort zone, and he recommends that move for others who might feel like their life or career is getting stale.

“Life is a gift. Explore, follow your passions,” he said. “Have a reflective mindset and follow that.”

Right time, right place

Ultimately, LaMena credits his study of the liberal arts for providing him with a well-rounded perspective and the skills to ask good questions, whether with clients or with team members. He encourages those entering the workforce to be like a sponge and “ask good questions.”

Those foundational translation skills he learned have come into play with his leadership roles, especially in bringing a “cohesiveness in building an effective team.”

“I realized I’m not going to be the smartest person in the room, but that’s OK. I have all these experts in all these subjects around me,” he said. “My job is to synthesize their knowledge. My role is around the breadth of knowledge, not depth.”

The road to success is not a linear path, LaMena said, and his success is due to his varied background. Today, he mentors individuals who are working toward their next promotion, striving to reach the next “rung on the ladder of success,” even if that step may feel unfamiliar or unusual.

“Notre Dame gave me an environment at a critical point where I could formulate and solidify some values that are not negotiable for me,” LaMena said. “A lot of people just focus on outcomes. Values matter, and the ends do not justify the means. We start with values as the foundation.”

In November, LaMena participated in the inaugural Notre Dame Wealth Management Symposium, sharing his passion for the industry and exposing students and young professionals to the meaningful and impactful careers it can provide for individuals from diverse educational backgrounds.

“At the end of the day, it’s not about having the most linear resume,” LaMena said. “It’s about curiosity, courage, and values. If you’re willing to ask good questions, take risks, and stay grounded in who you are, the path tends to reveal itself, and often in ways you never could have planned.”

One of the fundamental promises of artificial intelligence is that it will strengthen human agency by freeing us from mundane, repetitive tasks.

However, a new publication, co-edited by University of Notre Dame theologian Paul Scherz, argues that promise “rings hollow” in the face of efforts by technology companies to manipulate consumers — and ultimately deprive them of agency.

The book, Reclaiming Human Agency in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, is the second in a series created by the Vatican’s AI Research Group for the Centre for Digital Culture. Part of the Holy See’s Dicastery for Culture and Education, the group is composed of scholars from across North America who represent a range of disciplines from theology and philosophy to computer science and business.

“We wanted to examine the idea of how AI affects human actions, human freedom, and the ability of people to develop virtues — which we classified under the heading of human agency,” said Scherz, the Our Lady of Guadalupe College Professor of Theology and the ND–IBM Tech Ethics Lab Program Chair. “This is such an important topic right now because one of the most hyped developments that we’re hearing about right now is ‘agentic’ AI — or AI that will take action for people.

“We think it’s important to distinguish what the differences are between these AI agents and true human agents — and how the AI we have now is affecting our actions.”

In Reclaiming Human Agency, Scherz, co-editor Brian Patrick Green of Santa Clara University, and their fellow research group members cite potentially problematic issues with the technology, including addictive applications, “surveillance capitalism” that exploits users’ personal data for profit, widespread de-skilling in the workplace as complex tasks are handed over to AI, and the growth of algorithmic governance — where social media algorithms influence what people buy, how they perceive events, and even how they vote.

They also assert that human agency should not be seen in terms of “freedom from” tasks, but in “freedom for” pursuing the good, seeking excellence and purpose by building flourishing relationships with others and with God.

“This book is really an attempt to look at a number of these problems that AI is raising but, at the same time, to examine the opportunities that AI could provide to improve our ability to act,” Scherz said. “We wanted to come up with a set of strategies that would enable AI to serve human agency in the best way possible and ensure that it isn’t undermined.”

For Scherz, who holds a doctoral degree in genetics from Harvard University and a doctoral degree in moral theology from Notre Dame, this research builds on his work at the intersection of religion and science. While researching the Human Genome Project for his 2024 book The Ethics of Precision Medicine, Scherz began exploring the ways that precision medicine used data analytic technologies.

“When I was invited by the Vatican to be part of this group in 2020, I was already looking at the problems that were arising around AI in that framework, how it was affecting physicians, and how it might affect patients’ actions and their views of themselves,” he said. “It felt like a natural next step to begin looking at AI’s impacts more broadly in relation to the Catholic understanding of a human person.”

Notre Dame hosted a plenary session of the AI research group and Bishop Paul Tighe, secretary of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Culture and Education, last summer. The session, hosted by the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture, not only allowed the researchers to work together on forthcoming publications, but to engage with Notre Dame faculty and students.

The University — which recently received a $50 million grant to further develop a faith-based approach to AI ethics — is an ideal place to explore the field, Scherz noted, because of both its Catholic character and academic excellence.

“As one of the world’s leading Catholic universities, Notre Dame brings the resources of the Catholic tradition to bear on this issue — which Pope Leo XIV has said is one of the defining issues of our time,” Scherz said. “And with our expertise in computer science, theology, philosophy, and the history and philosophy of science, we are well-positioned to be a leader in these conversations.”

The AI research group is now working on a book focused on AI and education and will be looking next at AI’s effects on labor and the philosophies and ideologies that are active in Silicon Valley.

Contact: Carrie Gates, associate director of media relations, c.gates@nd.edu or 574-993-9220

Originally published by Carrie Gates at news.nd.edu on February 17, 2026.

A newly published guide from the American Academy of Arts & Sciences aims to help higher education institutions prepare young people for engagement in the democratic process. Political scientist David Campbell, who directs the Notre Dame Democracy Initiative, led the group of university presidents, faculty, and civic experts who developed the publication, titled Preparing Students for Civic Life: A Guide for Higher Education Leaders.

The publication is released at a time when young people’s distrust in American institutions and democracy is declining. Higher education leaders recognize that this issue must be addressed, as civic engagement improves student success and community well-being. But actually fixing the problem can be difficult.

“To paraphrase the old saying, civic education is like the weather: Everybody talks about it, but hardly anybody does anything about it,” Campbell said. “Now education leaders know what to do.”

“Notre Dame can be a national leader in democratic education for our students. Let us demonstrate that it is possible to disagree agreeably, and to be engaged without being polarized.”

The report outlines concrete ways colleges and universities can embed democratic values into every part of their campuses, from curriculum to culture. Key strategies — like building community partnerships and connecting civics to every major — show institutions how to turn their students into active, engaged, and informed citizens. The publication’s team of experts illustrate the effectiveness of these strategies with case studies from a variety of institutions, including Stanford University and The Ohio State University.

Campbell, who is the Packey J. Dee Professor of American Democracy in the Department of Political Science, came to the project already an expert on civic and political engagement among young people. Last year, he co-wrote a book with Christina Wolbrecht on the subject titled See Jane Run: How Women Politicians Matter for Young People. His work also appears in various scholarly journals, including the American Political Science Review and Journal of Politics, and his book American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us won the American Political Science Association’s award for the Best Book on Government, Politics, or International Affairs.

Through his leadership in both the Academy publication and the Democracy Initiative, Campbell amplifies Notre Dame’s voice in nationwide conversations about the future of the United States.

“Notre Dame can be a national leader in democratic education for our students,” Campbell said. “Let us demonstrate that it is possible to disagree agreeably, and to be engaged without being polarized.”

The beauty of fine art, the story the artist tells, and the emotions it stirs in the viewer are on full display at the Graduate School in Bond Hall. These works, selected for the Graduate School’s annual fine arts show, Solarium 25, feature a juried sampling of artistic explorations created by eight talented University of Notre Dame master of fine arts students. This signature event is held each spring, and this year’s event was made even bigger, as students in the English master of fine arts (MFA) program — also known as the creative writing program — were chosen to view the art and write an ekphrastic reflection, which is displayed alongside the original piece.

Solarium 25’s opening reception took place on March 5, with artists, writers, and nearly 100 members of the Notre Dame community in attendance to celebrate the work.

“Today, we recognize the importance of the unique and powerful contributions of Notre Dame’s MFA students in art, design, and writing to our University,” said Michael Hildreth, Ph.D., dean of the Graduate School, associate provost and vice president for graduate studies, and professor of the Department of Physics and Astronomy, “and we honor and celebrate the many ways these students research, interrogate, and interact with events in our world today and with the very experience of being human.”

“The opportunity to collaborate with the Graduate School and foreground the research produced by our MFA students in studio and design is one of the highlights of our spring semester each year,” added Jason Lahr, associate professor in the Department of Art, Art History, and Design and director of graduate studies for the MFA programs in studio art and design. “Not only do our students gain recognition for their work, but they also gain valuable professional experience through the process of hosting jurors from the Graduate School in their studios and in collaborating in the installation of their work.”

Exploring modern problems

The students featured in Solarium 25 utilize their art to explore some of the most pressing issues of contemporary life. One theme that appears is the examination of gender roles that compartmentalize or even erase women’s achievements in science or art. Another overarching theme is personal autonomy, particularly when that autonomy is compromised, threatened, or even denied by governments or one’s fellow humans. The creative writing students also creatively responded to these themes in their ekphrastic reflections.

What is an ekphrastic reflection? Paul Cunningham, creative writing program manager in the Department of English, said that in the past, the term “ekphrasis” has been defined as “a literary device in which a painting, sculpture, or other work of visual art is described in detail. Think Keats’s ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn,’” he suggested. Today, Cunningham said, “writers use ekphrasis to translate existing visual artworks into new poems and stories.”

The pairings — the artist and the creative writer chosen to write about the exhibit — are listed below.

The creative writers had just short of 20 hours to craft their response of 300 words or fewer, and the results were impressive.

“When students are face-to-face with a different visual medium, they elevate their diction, allowing them to try stylistic risks they might not normally take,” Cunningham said.

Solarium 25 art and ekphrastic award winners

Visual artists Griffin Lui, Sara Motallebi, and Emma Brooks claimed top prizes.

Isabel Boutiette, Helen Quah, and Oli Peters won the top awards for their ekphrastic reflection pieces.

Best in Show: Griffin Liu (sculpture), No Exit

Through a surreal miniature landscape titled No Exit, sculptor Griffin Liu said he aimed “to explore the tension between governmental control and human agency.” Liu, who drew from personal experience as a political refugee, crafted two exit doors connected by a fire escape, creating a sense of entrapment despite the promise of escape. The piece features both doors bearing exit signs, yet they lead nowhere. It includes precision-cut shapes for the railings and doors, as well as laser-cut signs, ensuring architectural accuracy. Even the most minor details were painstakingly tended to as Liu used acrylic paint to weather the surfaces, enhancing the worn, aged appearance and reinforcing the feeling of an unsettling, trapped atmosphere. His installation will undoubtedly resonate with many at a time of great turmoil in the United States and worldwide.

Creative writing student Adriana Toledzano Kolternik artfully composed the ekphrastic reflection accompanying Liu’s sculpture. The ending fragment of her composition:

Best Artist: Sara Motallebi (Visual Communication Design), Flow, Interrupted

Sara Motallebi probes memory, trauma, and identity in her installation Flow, Interrupted.

Motallebi’s art draws on memories surrounding the death of 22-year-old Jina Mahsa Amini on September 16, 2022 — a death widely believed to be at the hands of the Islamic Republic regime’s notorious morality police for Amini’s alleged improper hijab. Amini’s death sparked the Women, Life, Freedom movement, which was met with brutal repression and resulted in at least 500 deaths in Iran, human rights groups estimate.

Motallebi’s installation takes up the theme of “digital amnesia.” Many Iranians, Motallebi included, erased photos from their phones, “an action born of fear, survival, and resistance.” The artist’s work uses monoprints of the same image of Nika, a 16-year-old protester. Through layers of transparent prints, shadows, and text, fragmented images blur what is present and what has been erased.

“It invites viewers to reflect on the fragility of remembrance and the persistence of resistance against erasure,” Motallebi said.

Creative writing MFA student Isabel Boutiette, who received first place honors for her creative writing about Motallebi’s piece in the Solarium show OR CROSSING STREETS LIKE LETTERS, describes her process of response to the installation: “It was important to me to integrate Sara’s idea of erasure and absence into the work. I wanted each quatrain in the sequence to leave open-ended, signaling a gap in the text. I tried to incorporate the violence of what her work bore witness to, and I really wanted to draw attention to the importance and power of ‘witness’ in her work, even under the pressures of state-backed erasure and censorship.”

People’s Choice: Emma Brooks (Design), Joy, Activism, & Buttons

Emma Brooks won the People’s Choice Award for Joy, Activism, & Buttons, a unique and joyful work designed to spark activism. Brooks produced her installation through a collaboration with Goshen College’s Prevention Intervention Network (PIN), using pinback buttons as the primary medium, along with stickers, door hangers, and T-shirts, all while promoting a message of consent and aiming to dismantle rape culture. Two examples of text on the buttons: “We look out for each other” and “Consent is my cup of tea.” Brooks also designed a toolkit to empower the PIN students, featuring custom stamps, ink, and button templates to create their own buttons. It is a weighty topic, but Brooks also infused her work with another quality: joy.

“The experience of creating the buttons together is enriching, fun, and joyful while ensuring consistency and reinforcing PIN’s brand recognition,” she said.

Brooks explained that she is inspired by the work of designer Ingrid Fetell Lee and her philosophy around the aesthetics of joy.

“Activism can be heavy,” Brooks said. “Joy is more sustainable, as it embodies the drive for life itself.”

Creative writing student Helen Quah’s accompanying ekphrastic reflection, titled Safety Pin, was awarded first runner-up honors in the Solarium show. In it, she describes sensations and memories linked to the swallowing of a pin and waiting for “a jolt of pain or tingly itch” that would “get me wondering about the little creature.” This symbol of the safety pin, she explained, “a small sharp everyday object, was a way for mine and Emma’s work to collide, exploring ideas of concealment, shame, and their relation to violence against women.”

Furthermore, Quah found great joy in the intertwining of their work during Solarium 25.

“I found this Solarium ekphrasis a really enjoyable challenge to engage deeply with the work of Emma Brooks,” she said. “Her constellation of pin badges and stamps aimed to promote discussions about women’s safety and consent, which was remarkable. I found myself quickly engaging with the art through a fiction story that focused on the image and object of the safety pin from a first-person, young girl’s perspective.”

Ekphrastic reflection: second runner up, Oli Peters

Oli Peters, who won second-runner-up honors for her ekphrastic reflection, “Miss A-Bomb,” imaginatively crafted a character to bring Heidi Dargle’s museum-style exhibit Miss Atomic to life. Peters provides this context for her work:

I hoped to communicate the complexity and layeredness of Dargle’s piece. I attempted to do this by turning Miss Atomic into a character and generating a narrative that began with her winning the pageant. From there, I was able to weave in some of the striking details that the artist presented in her work: the lipstick-stained uranium tea cup, the images of the women who survived the A-bomb blast then traveled to the US to get corrective plastic surgery, the gas mask, the history-forgotten women who helped put the bomb together. I also wanted to harness the strange and contradictory version of femininity that Miss Atomic represented, which Heidi adeptly probed and questioned.

In every pairing, artists representing completely different mediums found a powerful way to come together and tell a story. Whether they were chosen as winners, learned a new perspective, solidified their own, or honed their creative skills, they all walked away with a richer understanding of art, ekphrastic reflections, and perhaps themselves.

Originally published by The Graduate School at graduateschool.nd.edu on February 13, 2026.

In medieval England, a woman named Margery Kempe decided to devote her life to pilgrimage.

After a sudden and intense religious conversion, Kempe began traveling around England to listen to sermons and meet with mystics, gathering an account of her life and what she learned into a record known as The Book of Margery Kempe — one of the earliest autobiographies written in English. She did this despite a lack of any formal education in reading, writing, or theology, depending on preaching, song, and those who read out loud to her.

Now, 600 years later, Kempe’s words — the patterns and rhymes she picked up from homilies and sermons — inform literary scholars of English aural culture in the Middle Ages. One such scholar is Ann Killian, OP, who follows Kempe's attempts to write her own life by borrowing language from the texts she heard and remembered.

An assistant professor in the Department of English, Killian writes and teaches about medieval literature and devotional culture. She’s particularly interested in the social life of poetry — not just what was written down, but how it affected people in the past. In her in-progress first monograph, “Reforming Lyric: Poetry and Theology in England, 1380-1530,” she places the genre of religious lyric as a key proponent of the English vernacular’s legitimacy in scriptural teaching.

“Poetry had a larger life than what we see written in the books that we have,” said Killian, who came to Notre Dame after two years at Ohio Dominican University. “How did most people encounter this poetry, and how did it feature in theological education?”

Seeing the past through poems

Often, medieval poetry was written anonymously for other people to share. With the era’s low literacy rates, poems were designed to be easy to remember and repeat by people who couldn’t encounter them through writing. A priest might write a poem as the lyrics for a religious procession, for his parishioners to say, or to use in sermons.

For Killian — a fellow of the Medieval Institute, where she also spent two years as a postdoc after earning her Ph.D. from Yale University — this literary culture provides an excitingly complex way to piece together an image of a time marked by the religious controversy leading up to the Reformation. But recently, she’s been studying a medieval poet who’s an exception to the standard of anonymity — John Audelay.

He created a book of poems he wrote and poems he collected and wanted to preserve, but unlike most medieval authors, he wrote himself into many of his poems, saying things like, “Pray for me, the Blind Audelay.”

The reason Audelay perhaps wanted readers to pray for him, Killian said, was intense guilt. The poet worked as a chaplain for a noble family, so when his lord — a person whose moral behavior Audelay considered himself responsible for — caused the death of a parishioner, Audelay’s poetry became a cry for absolution.

“We all have some little bit of understanding that comes from our own life experiences, our own insight, and we can only move toward a greater understanding of truth from being in dialogue with one another.”

“A lot of medieval literature betrays this ongoing anxiety about, ‘Have I done something I haven’t confessed or repented for?’” Killian said.

The unique traits found in Audelay’s work reflect the penance-based medieval justice system. Audelay is fearful his misdeeds endanger his salvation, but he tries to atone through his writing, she said, presenting his own redemption arc as an example others might follow.

Killian focused on Audelay’s poems about the joyful love of God, as opposed to his dread of death, in a chapter she wrote for an upcoming collection edited by Susanna Fein, a professor emerita in Kent State University’s English department.

Killian’s next project will examine how medieval writers describe and teach the practice of contemplation. In most medieval writing, contemplative prayer is illustrated as imagining Christ’s face when looking in a mirror — picturing oneself as a likeness of God to actually become more like God. But Killian is investigating a different analogy: gardening.

“Poets liken contemplation to breaking up hard soil, pulling up weeds, and planting seeds,” she said.

Killian argues that medieval writers, such as Mechtild of Helfta and Julian of Norwich, reconceived contemplation as inner work meant to benefit the community. Beyond self-transformation, contemplation bears fruit to nourish one’s neighbors.

This project will be part of her second book, “Mystical Ecology,” which will trace the way medieval contemplative writers engage with and think through the natural world in their prayer practice.

Imagining a different world

For Killian, finding new ways of seeing faith and self in old writing is a large part of what draws her to medieval poetry.

“Going back to the medieval world — it almost works in a similar way to fantasy or science fiction,” she said. “It’s imagining how the world could be otherwise.”

The world she wants to see is one built on community, and it’s one she’s already working to create as a vowed member of the Dominican Sisters of Peace, a congregation of Catholic women religious.

Part of the Dominican tradition is seeking truth, and Killian has exercised this charism in becoming a professor, which keeps her engaged in large academic conversations and lets her lead the seminar classes she’s always loved. Last semester, she explored morality, temptation, and human freedom with students in Demons, Tyrants, and Villains in Early English Drama. This semester, she’s bringing students on a literary journey from the Book of Job to the Black Lives Matter movement in the University Seminar course Life After Loss: Poets on Grief.

Killian wants her students to talk across time with past thinkers, artists, and poets — as well as with their classmates. The hope is they’ll understand who they are and what they want the world to be.

“Each of us has a piece of the truth,” she said. “We all have some little bit of understanding that comes from our own life experiences, our own insight, and we can only move toward a greater understanding of truth from being in dialogue with one another.”

About one quarter of inmates have a serious mental illness, and 63% struggle with drug dependence or abuse, often coinciding with behavioral problems. Those awaiting trial for serious offenses may tend toward violence, making jail time dangerous for both inmates and jail employees. In addition, the county jail system, which is often viewed as a short-term, transitional time period for inmates, is typically overlooked for providing meaningful therapy opportunities and other interventions.

A new study by University of Notre Dame researchers shows that introducing a unique and low-cost cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) program for longer-term jail inmates teaches lifelong skills and reduces violent behavior — making the jail safer in the long run.

“Despite the fact that most people are in jail for a short time, many spend months serving a sentence or even years awaiting trial,” said Mary Kate Batistich, an assistant research professor in the Department of Economics who works in Notre Dame’s Wilson Sheehan Lab for Economic Opportunities (LEO).

“These inmates often come into the jail system with traumatic pasts and with much higher rates of mental illness and substance use disorders than the general population,” she said. “Violence is an issue in jails, as are behavioral problems, with suicide and homicide rates much higher than you’d think, considering that this population is confined and surveilled.”

In their working paper, Batistich’s research team reported that inmates who participate in CBT programs experience a 49% drop in behavioral incidents and a 50% drop in physical assaults on other inmates or officers.

Batistich, along with co-authors William Evans, the Keough-Hesburgh Professor of Economics at Notre Dame and co-founder of LEO; Tyler Giles of Wellesley College; and Rebecca Margolit-Chan of Cornell University, examined Step Up, a CBT program administered to inmates at the Lubbock County Detention Center in Lubbock, Texas. Designed for individuals with violent backgrounds or tendencies, the program uses a combination of group classes, one-on-one counseling and a structured workbook to help participants recognize and manage emotions.

Through a self-paced 14- to 21-week curriculum, participants learn how to identify their emotions and the physical sensations that accompany them. The goal is for the inmates to learn to recognize their emotions and change their way of thinking — from making negative behavioral choices to adopting rational and constructive behaviors — as a way to peacefully resolve conflict.

“The underlying philosophy of the program is that although individuals experience negative events (such as an unpleasant confrontation with another person), it is one’s interpretation of the event, rather than the event itself, that leads to negative reactions such as anger and violence,” the researchers wrote.

Typically within a jail system, authorities will respond to more serious behavioral infractions by placing the inmate in solitary confinement, where it is estimated that about 4.4% of the incarcerated population is held at any point in time, according to the study.

“There's been research suggesting that solitary confinement can actually be very harmful to the individual, both psychologically and physically,” Batistich said. “This form of discipline may not even be making the institutions any safer. What we're doing in this paper is offering an alternative by promoting therapy over punitive measures.”

And this alternative is not only replicable on a national scale, but cost effective as well, according to the researchers.

“There is a real intersection between the criminal justice system and poverty, homelessness, mental illness and substance use disorders. Incarcerated individuals are often dealing with several of these issues and also tend to be overlooked and underserved. These are the people in most need of our care and attention.”

The cost of implementing the Step Up program — including supplies, curriculum books and personnel — is an average of $618 per participant. Leveraging existing jail space and staff capacity, along with instruction by graduate students at nearby Texas Tech University, have made it possible to keep costs down.

The researchers concluded that therapy designed to reduce violent behavior in jails works well when implemented during incarceration, while participants are kept to a consistent and intensive treatment regimen as they await trial or extended incarceration. Such treatment can “improve one’s behavior in the near term, increase safety within institutions and potentially benefit public safety as well,” they wrote.

“There is a real intersection between the criminal justice system and poverty, homelessness, mental illness, and substance use disorders,” Batistich added. “Incarcerated individuals are often dealing with several of these issues and also tend to be overlooked and underserved. These are the people in most need of our care and attention.”

Contact: Tracy DeStazio, associate director of media relations, 574-631-9958 or tdestazi@nd.edu

Originally published by Tracy DeStazio at news.nd.edu on February 12, 2026.

The University of Notre Dame is a top producer of Fulbright students for the 12th consecutive year, according to an announcement from the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, which administers the Fulbright U.S. Student Program on behalf of the U.S. Department of State.

Twenty-two Notre Dame students — 18 from the College of Arts & Letters — were awarded Fulbright Scholarships for the 2025-26 academic year, ranking 12th among U.S. doctoral institutions. The awardees include 18 undergraduate students and four graduate students. Slightly more than 30 percent of the Notre Dame students who applied to the program were accepted, exceeding the respective rates for the 11 schools ahead of Notre Dame in the rankings.

Notre Dame has been a top producer of Fulbright students 13 times since the 2009-10 academic year. Full results are available online at the Chronicle of Higher Education.

“Last year's Fulbright process was unusually challenging due to shifting federal funding priorities. Many countries lessened the amount of awards they offered halfway through the process,” said Elise Rudt-Moorthy, associate director of national fellowships with Notre Dame’s Flatley Center for Undergraduate Scholarly Engagement. “However, our students worked incredibly hard to earn their placements and then displayed great patience amid uncertainty. It was a pleasure and honor to serve them alongside my colleagues Mathilda Nassar, Emily Hunt, Michael Skalski and Veronica Vos.”

Mary Ann McDowell, a professor of biology and associate dean for professional development at the Graduate School, offered similar praise.

“Fulbright awards are highly competitive and recognize academic excellence, leadership potential and a strong commitment to global engagement and public service,” McDowell said. “The continued success of Notre Dame students earning Fulbright awards reflects their remarkable talent, dedication and drive to make a meaningful difference in the world. I am sincerely thankful to the exceptional teams in the Graduate School’s Office of Grants and Fellowships and the Center for Undergraduate Scholarly Engagement, whose guidance and expertise are instrumental in supporting students throughout the Fulbright application process.”

Established in 1964, the Fulbright U.S. Student Program is the U.S. government’s flagship educational and cultural exchange program, offering students the opportunity to study, teach or pursue research or other projects abroad.

The awardees, with Arts & Letters students bolded, are:

Undergraduate

• Aria Bossone, American studies and peace studies (supplemental), English teaching assistantship to Spain

• Charlotte Cardarella, honors anthropology and Arabic, English teaching assistantship to Spain

• Mary Kate Cashman, political science and peace studies (supplemental), English teaching assistantship to Kosovo

• Eva Garces-Foley, anthropology, peace studies (supplemental), and Spanish (supplemental), English teaching assistantship to Spain

• Juliet Hare, political science, global affairs (supplemental with a concentration in international peace studies), and French (supplemental), English teaching assistantship to Luxembourg

• Ethan Harned, psychology and pre-health studies (supplemental), Fulbright-Nehru open study/research award to India

• Sarah Hui, Program of Liberal Studies and theology, open study/research award to Italy

• Joseph Kositzke, American studies, English teaching assistantship to Spain

• Joseph Lufti, American studies and Arabic, English teaching assistantship to Georgia

• Leslie Martin, global affairs and Latino studies (supplemental), English teaching assistantship to Colombia

• Matthew McCollum, honors international economics, English teaching assistantship to Germany

• Maria Murinova, Program of Liberal Studies, English teaching assistantship to the Slovak Republic

• Margaret O’Brien, political science and Italian (supplemental with a concentration in Irish studies), English teaching assistantship to Italy

• Jasmine Peña Ramirez, political science and Latino studies (supplemental), English teaching assistantship to South Korea

• Theresa Salazar, preprofessional studies and theology (supplemental), English teaching assistantship to Spain

• Alexandra Sutton, political science, English teaching assistantship to Lithuania

• Sarah Van Hollebeke, political science and German, English teaching assistantship to Germany

• Juliet Webb, anthropology and peace studies (supplemental), English teaching assistantship to Senegal

Graduate

• Christopher Cirelli, master of education (Alliance for Catholic Education), English teaching assistantship to Italy

• Montana Garcia, master of education (Alliance for Catholic Education), English teaching assistantship to Malta

• Nicholas Herrud, history, open study/research award to Lithuania

• Natasha Rodgers, French and Francophone studies, English teaching assistantship to Mauritius

For more information on this and other scholarship opportunities, visit cuse.nd.edu (undergraduate students) or graduateschool.nd.edu/graduate-training/research-communication/the-office-of-grants-and-fellowships/ (graduate students).

Originally published by Erin Blasko at news.nd.edu on February 04, 2026.