In Mozambique, more than one in three children under five suffer from stunting, or impaired physical growth, a sign of chronic undernutrition. New research from the University of Notre Dame shows that improving access to safe drinking water can reduce the odds of stunting by about 20 percent, making it the most effective (WASH) intervention for child growth.

, published in the journal Children, is one of the few studies to use nationally representative data from Mozambique to examine the independent and combined effects of access to water and sanitation on child growth outcomes (stunting and wasting). It also provides evidence-based policy recommendations for prioritizing clean water access, improving sanitation and tracking child growth to help guide interventions.

“Access to clean and safe drinking water is critical for preventing chronic undernutrition in children,” said , associate professor of development and global health economics at the University of Notre Dame’s . “In Mozambique, where millions lack safe water, focusing on water interventions can have the greatest impact on stunting.”

Malnutrition remains a critical global health challenge, with the highest rates in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. While the World Health Organization highlights WASH as essential to preventing malnutrition by reducing diarrheal disease, environmental enteric dysfunction (an intestinal condition that causes inflammation and damaged gut lining) and impaired nutrient absorption, large gaps still remain. Nearly 2 billion people lack access to safe drinking water, and 3.6 billion lack access to safe sanitation.

Mozambique reflects this dual crisis. Recent data shows 56 percent of the population has access to basic drinking water and 31 percent to basic sanitation. In 2022, 37 percent of children under five suffered from stunting and four percent from wasting, or low weight for height. After steady improvements from 2000 to 2020, progress has since stalled. The economic impact of stunting is also high, with more than 11 percent of the gross domestic product lost due to undernutrition in Mozambique.

“There may be no perfect solution to stunting and wasting, but we can get as close as possible by following the evidence,” said Jailene Castillo, co-author of the study and a masters of global affairs student at the Keough 91��Ƶ. “In Mozambique, despite widespread WASH programs, rates of stunting and wasting remain high. We wanted to understand whether WASH alone is enough to reduce malnutrition, a question no one had rigorously tested before.”

Notre Dame researchers analyzed health data from more than 3,500 children, drawn from the Mozambique Demographic and Health Surveys. The survey was conducted by Mozambique’s National Institute of Statistics in collaboration with the Ministry of Health in 2022–23, with technical support from ICF International. Using rigorous econometric methods, the study assessed associations between improved drinking water sources, sanitation facility types and child stunting and wasting. Two key WASH indicators — source of drinking water and type of toilet facilities — were analyzed separately and together.

The study found that after accounting for household and child factors such as wealth, region and religion, improved water access was initially associated with a 20 percent reduction in the odds of stunting. Improved sanitation showed no independent effect on stunting, and neither water nor sanitation had a consistent association with wasting.

“For a parent or caregiver, this means something simple: The safety of the water a child drinks every day can shape that child’s development for years,” said William Pater, a study co-author and biological sciences student at the University of Notre Dame. “For communities and decision-makers, it means that investing in clean, consistent water access may have a bigger impact on long-term child growth than sanitation alone. And because wasting did not respond clearly to either water or sanitation, it reinforces the need for timely nutrition support, infection treatment and social protection programs.”

Policy recommendations

Based on their findings, the researchers recommend that policymakers:

• Prioritize clean water access by expanding safely managed and basic water services and strengthening water-quality monitoring in regions with high stunting.
• Continue sanitation improvements for broader health and dignity benefits, while recognizing these changes may not produce rapid gains in child growth.
• Track progress using clear indicators on WASH access, water quality, disease burden and child growth metrics.

By identifying whether water or sanitation investments have stronger impacts on stunting or wasting, the researchers noted that policymakers in Mozambique and in similar low- and middle-income settings can better allocate resources to reduce child malnutrition.

Study co-author Gautam is affiliated with the Keough 91��Ƶ’s as well as Notre Dame’s and Christina Molinaro, a graduate of Notre Dame, was also a co-author on the study.

Originally published by April Toler at on Dec. 11.

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

A growing number of studies show that when investors pay close attention to individual stocks, it significantly impacts how they learn about and trade those stocks, which in turn drives stock price movements. In other words, what catches investors’ eyes directly influences their decisions and shapes the stock market.

However, not all investors watch the same things, and that variability creates very different outcomes in the market. New research from the University of Notre Dame looks at how investor buzz sways the stock market, revealing that attention on individual stocks might actually predict the entire market’s short-term future performance, and noting an interesting split between retail and institutional investors.

When everyday investors, known as retail investors, suddenly pay more attention to the market, returns over the next week tend to fall. But when professional investors such as mutual funds and hedge funds, known as institutional investors, start paying more attention, returns over the next week tend to rise — especially when big news is about to come out, according to , the Howard J. and Geraldine F. Korth Professor of Finance at Notre Dame’s . Da’s research, “,” is forthcoming in Management Science.

Da, with co-authors Jian Hua and Lin Peng from Baruch College and Tim Chih-Ching Hung from National Taiwan University, used Google’s daily search volume index to measure retail investor attention and Bloomberg’s “Daily Maximum Readership” score, which captures how often professional investors on Bloomberg are reading news about a particular stock, for institutional investor attention.

Rather than looking at each stock separately, the researchers averaged the abnormal attention measures across all stocks, allowing them to create two daily, market-level attention indexes: Aggregate Retail Attention (ARA) and Aggregate Institutional Attention (AIA). They tested whether these market-level attention measures can predict future stock market returns by running regressions of market returns on ARA and AIA.

“Investors have to notice a stock before they trade it, and trading is what moves prices,” Da said. “So it’s not surprising that attention can predict returns. What is surprising are two patterns we uncover.”

First, the study shows that different types of investors behave distinctly. Retail investors and institutional investors show opposite effects.

Retail attention predicts lower future returns, the researchers found. In other words, when everyone’s talking about a stock, it usually means it’s about to underperform. Popular stocks with lots of buzz often disappoint later because individual investors are late to the party and push prices too high initially. Once the hype dies down, prices fall back to earth, meaning lower returns for those who jumped on the bandwagon.

On the other hand, the researchers saw that institutional attention often acts as an early signal for higher future returns. Institutional investors start digging into a stock before major news breaks. When their interest is piqued, it’s often a signal that some uncertainty is on the horizon. This requires investors to demand a higher return for holding that stock around the time when the actual news comes out.

Second, the study reveals that looking only at market-level attention, such as searches for “Dow,” “S&P 500,” etc., doesn’t predict returns well.

“The market is really just the sum of many individual stocks,” Da said. “We measure attention at the stock level and then combine all that data into a bigger picture. This bottom-up attention measure works much better than the top-down approach.”

Da said identifying new factors that can forecast market ups and downs is valuable for two main reasons.

“It helps us understand what actually pushes the market higher or lower, and there’s the obvious practical perk — better predictions mean better decisions when we’re deciding where to put our money.”

Contact: Zhi Da, 574-631-0354, zda@nd.edu

With natural disasters striking communities across the U.S. at an accelerating pace, the question of how to build homes that can endure them has never been more critical.

New research spanning political science and civil engineering shows that the answer could lie at the intersection of smarter regulatory systems and stronger structures. While neither approach is sufficient on its own, together they offer a promising path toward safer homes.

University of Notre Dame political scientist�� and civil engineering professors from California State University, Sacramento and from the University of Colorado Boulder have identified the building code features that have the biggest impact on hazard resilience and translated those features into tangible, practical building solutions. The findings from their National Science Foundation-funded study were published in the

A dual approach to resilience

Ostermann and Liel say that housing resilience is both a governance issue and a technical problem. Building codes, as written, already contain nearly everything one needs to build safe homes — but in many places, implementation remains a barrier.

“Regulations support the goals of safe, resilient housing, but they can also get in the way,” said Ostermann, associate professor of global affairs and political science at Notre Dame’s . “We need to understand how culture and local building practices interact with regulatory processes.”

A locally informed approach to regulation was especially important given the site of the study: Anchorage, Alaska. Geographically isolated from the continental U.S., its independent-minded population Even after more than 750 homes were destroyed or damaged by a magnitude 7.1 earthquake in 2018, many Alaskans have retained their libertarian-leaning views. In other words, simply strengthening building codes does not guarantee safer construction if the codes are not followed in the first place.

“People everywhere share a desire for safe housing, but communities vary in the degree to which they regulate and enforce building codes,” Ostermann said.

A pragmatic approach to regulation

To gain local expertise on the key features of hazard-resilient housing, the researchers conducted interviews with nearly 40 experts including structural and geotechnical engineers, builders, regulators, inspectors and others. Underlying this approach is a concept Ostermann developed to help governments regulate more effectively in places where traditional, top-down models fail.

“It suggests that we need to understand the context in which we regulate, and that we need to design regulation for that context — which means sometimes doing things that are a little bit weird,” Ostermann said.

The sheer complexity of building code poses a challenge in and of itself.

“If you were to print it out, it's multiple volumes,” Ostermann said. “It’s too big to be comprehended by almost anybody, whether it’s the government using it or a contractor trying to meet the code.”

Because few people can realistically utilize the entire code, Ostermann and Liel argue that local officials and other stakeholders must prioritize a smaller set of features that matter most for hazard safety in their particular environment.

Engineering insights: Why homes fail and how to fix it

Echeverría and Liel’s computational structural engineering analysis showed that many homes in Alaska do not perform well in hazardous conditions because key structural elements are missing due to lack of compliance.

In many two-story homes built over large, open garages — a common design in Alaska — the mass of the second floor sits on a first floor with limited lateral support. “You’re basically missing one side of that box,” Liel said. “That overstrains the other sides and creates a twisting torsion problem, so these homes do not perform as well during an earthquake.”

Echeverría and Liel identified a list of critical structural features that should be prioritized to maximize compliance and hazard resilience:

• Shear walls — walls that are designed to withstand lateral forces such as wind
• Proper framing around garage openings
• Hold-downs — steel connectors that anchor a wall to the foundation and keep it anchored amid shaking

Liel emphasized that these solutions are neither exotic nor expensive, but homeowners and builders often do not recognize their significance. Echeverría and Liel’s findings provided the very list of “critical features” needed to inform Ostermann’s pragmatic regulation.

Ostermann and Liel are studying housing not only in Alaska, but also in Puerto Rico, which is still rebuilding eight years after Hurricane Maria, and Lahaina, Maui, which suffered widespread damage during a 2023 wildfire.

“When communities, engineers, builders and policymakers work together, resilience stops being an abstract ideal and becomes a place people can safely make their home in,” Ostermann said. “If we keep listening, learning and adapting, we can build homes that not only endure the next disaster, but also give families the security and stability they need to plan for the future.”

Originally published by Renée LaReau at on Dec. 5.

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

The at the University of Notre Dame announced a major gift from the Marten Charitable Foundation through the stewardship of Gini Marten Hupfer, foundation leader and member of the museum’s Advisory Council. The tandem naming and endowment gift was inspired by the legacy of Virginia Marten (1925–2022), a long-standing former member of the Advisory Council and devoted museum supporter.

The gift will confer the name “Marten Family Gallery” on the current east gallery of European Art through 1700. Works by Vincenzo Spisanelli, Claude Lorrain, Giuseppe Ribera and Bartolomeo Veneto, among others, are featured. With the renaming, a permanent feature, centered in the gallery, will be installed. Called the “Marian Court,” it will be a display featuring Marian imagery from the Raclin Murphy’s extensive holdings to honor Virginia Marten’s particular devotion to Mary, the Mother of Christ, and her love of art. Currently, images based on Marian iconography, ranging from paintings by Francesco Francia to Hans Memling to Giorgio Vasari, are highlighted in this space.

Complementing the named gallery, the second part of the gift establishes the Marten Family Endowment for Marian Art. The new endowment will provide support for research, conservation, acquisitions, interpretation and programming to advance scholarship and appreciation of the traditions of Marian Art. A unique endowment to the institution, it underscores both the museum’s and the University’s commitment to research and inquiry.

"This gift is meant to honor my sweet mother, Virginia Marten’s love for both Notre Dame, the Blessed Mother and her passion for the arts. We believe we found the perfect space in which to do just that at the Raclin Murphy Museum of Art. I know my mother would be thrilled and humbled by this," Gini Marten Hupfer said.

“The support of the Marten Family, beginning with Virginia and steadfastly followed by her children, is truly remarkable and inspiring,” said Joseph Antenucci Becherer, director and curator. “The Raclin Murphy Museum of Art and the University of Notre Dame are uniquely positioned to facilitate and celebrate the study and appreciation of Marian imagery, thus truly honoring the legacy of Virginia and her family. Their gift and endowment mark an exceptional moment when love, devotion and scholarship converge.”

Admission to the Museum is free for all guests. For more information on hours of operation, exhibits and special events, visit

Contact: Gina Costa, Communications Program Director, Raclin Murphy Museum of Art, 574-631-4720, gcosta@nd.edu

The beginning of Advent, Father Dowd noted in his homily, was a fitting time to celebrate the Mass.

“Advent is a season when, in a special way, we are called to prepare a place for the Lord Jesus in our hearts, in our minds, in our lives and in our communities,” Father Dowd said. “Advent is also a season when we are called to develop insight — a ‘holy insight’ — that allows us to recognize the Lord Jesus as he comes to us.”

Father Dowd observed that Jesus “comes to us in ways that are stunning for their ordinariness.” Referencing the Mass’ first reading from the book of Deuteronomy, he said that God’s people are to be especially attentive to the vulnerable in their midst, for “God continues to come to us in flesh and blood, especially the flesh and blood of those who struggle the most.”

“While there are many vulnerable people in our midst here in our country and elsewhere in our world — and we Christians are called to recognize Christ present in them all — this evening, as members of the Notre Dame family, we join with our Holy Father, Pope Leo, and our bishops to pray that we might recognize Christ present in our immigrant population, many of whom are especially vulnerable these days,” Father Dowd said.

Father Dowd noted that “it is important to recognize the right and responsibility of governments to decide who, when and how to allow people into a country, including this one.”

“There can be no doubt our immigration system in this country is broken, and has been for some time,” he said. “There is need for reform.

“However, it is imperative that we treat people who are in this country — many for several years, contributing to and enriching our country — with the respect that their God-given dignity demands.”

Father Dowd exhorted the hundreds of attendees to consider how the Notre Dame community can work together to address the brokenness of the immigration system.

“At Notre Dame, we must do more than complain. We must deepen our understanding of the complexity of the situation and work with others to propose sensible and humane solutions,” he said. “That’s what universities are for.”

Father Dowd concluded his homily with a call to pray for immigrants, for “sensible and humane immigration policy reform” and for “elected leaders and all who have the responsibility of governing and enforcing our country’s laws.”

“And, let us pray that those of us who call ourselves Christians might be cultivators of hope by recognizing Christ in the vulnerable, serving him there, learning from him there and standing with him there,” he said.

“May Notre Dame always be a community dedicated to growth, not only in knowledge, understanding and technical expertise, but in wisdom and insight — the holy insight to recognize the mysterious presence of Christ in our midst.”

, vice president for student affairs, closed the Mass with an invitation to join Father Dowd and himself in prayer at the Grotto, “to light a candle and to ask for the intercession of Our Lady as we navigate these conversations as a nation.”

Father Dowd’s full homily is available at .

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

The percentage of American children raised in two-parent homes, however, is strikingly low. Nearly 30 percent of American children now live outside a married-parent home, with 20 percent living with only their mother. Research has shown that this gap in family structures contributes to class gaps in childhood resources, experiences and outcomes, which simultaneously reflect and exacerbate inequality.

In partnership with the University of Notre Dame’s , the has launched an interdisciplinary research endeavor aimed at addressing these issues by building and disseminating evidence that will inform policy to strengthen families, support parents and improve child well-being.

Led by , the Gilbert F. Schaefer Professor in the , the has developed an ambitious research agenda that will foster policy-relevant work by scholars in economics, psychology, anthropology and other disciplines.

“I am honored to join colleagues across the Notre Dame community in launching an initiative that takes up the need to strengthen families as a research and policy priority,” said Kearney, who joined the Notre Dame faculty this fall after 19 years at the University of Maryland. “Through rigorous scholarship and active engagement, this effort will deepen our understanding of the challenges facing families in America and identify solutions that promote healthy family formation and stability. This is a timely and important endeavor — and Notre Dame is exactly the right place for it.”

Kearney, who also directs the Aspen Economic Strategy Group, is the author of “The Two-Parent Privilege: How Americans Stopped Getting Married and Started Falling Behind.” She is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Her work has been published frequently in leading academic journals, and she has contributed pieces to , and .

The Strengthening Families Research Initiative has identified three key social challenges affecting family well-being: the number of U.S. children living with married parents has declined in the past 40 years; family structures differ significantly by education, race and ethnicity; and children who grow up outside two-parent homes are at an elevated risk of poverty and other measures of economic and social disadvantage.

To address these challenges, Kearney and other scholars will examine fundamental questions that align with the University’s Catholic mission-driven commitment to fighting poverty, including:

• What are effective ways to improve the economic position of non-college-educated men, and to what extent do such efforts promote stable families and better outcomes for men, women and children?

• How should government tax codes and transfer programs be reformed to promote, rather than discourage, the formation of stable marriages and families?

• What is the causal link between the legal and institutional frameworks around marriage and divorce and the decline in marriage and married-parent homes? How do these legal and institutional frameworks affect child and parent well-being?

• What types of programs and interventions advance healthy relationship formation and effective co-parenting? How successful are such programs at improving children’s and parents’ outcomes?

• How can systems that interact with vulnerable families be reformed and leveraged to better serve and strengthen families?

“The challenges facing families are immense. Understanding what works to strengthen families is crucial in the fight against poverty,” said , professor of economics, director of the Notre Dame Poverty Initiative, and co-founder and director of the “The Poverty Initiative is proud to support the efforts of the Strengthening Families Research Initiative in their examination of what policies and programs best support family stability and social mobility.”

A focus on building strong families as part of an anti-poverty research and policy agenda is more complex than a focus on education, labor market, health care or housing interventions, Kearney said. Families are deeply personal affairs, and relationships are complicated, but they do affect economic realities, children’s life trajectories and societal outcomes.

Kearney believes that researchers, community leaders and policymakers must collaborate to address barriers many face in creating strong and supportive family environments for themselves and their children. With support from across the University, she believes Notre Dame can be the place where those connections are made.

“The Strengthening Families Research Initiative embodies what makes Notre Dame distinctive: a deep commitment to rigorous research, to the fight against poverty and to Catholic social teaching,” said , the I.A. O’Shaughnessy Dean of the College of Arts & Letters. “We are thrilled that a scholar and leader as exceptional as Melissa has chosen Notre Dame as the place to do this work, and I look forward to supporting her and her team as they use the best social science evidence to understand what truly helps families thrive in the real world.”

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

The United States Department of Defense has honored the University of Notre Dame’s (ROTC) as the nation’s top Navy collegiate program for the 2023-24 academic year. This comes after the Department of Defense, also called the Department of War, bestowed the same honor on the University’s Army ROTC program in May.

Presented annually, the Educational Institution Partnership Excellence Award recognizes the outstanding ROTC unit and host educational institution from each military department based on accomplishments in three areas: performance, educational institution support and other noteworthy achievements.

“We are proud of our Midshipmen and Navy ROTC leaders, whose character, discipline and concern for the common good represent the best of Notre Dame,” , said. “It is wonderful to see them recognized alongside our Army ROTC cadets, and on behalf of the entire campus community, we congratulate them on this prestigious honor.”

In a recent ceremony at the reflecting pool on campus, Midshipman Annika Kell, a senior environmental science major, presented Father Dowd with a certificate of recognition for the award.

They were joined by CAPT John Smith, commanding officer of the Naval ROTC unit; CDR Matt Wood, executive officer of the unit; senior mechanical engineering major Douglass Tackney, midshipman executive officer of the unit; and senior mechanical engineering major Charlie Alberino, midshipman operations officer of the unit, among others.

“The Naval ROTC program plays a critical role in developing our young men and women for service as commissioned officers in the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, striking a balance between leadership, academics, physical fitness and community involvement,” Smith said. “The success of the program depends on many factors, most notably the selfless dedication of our students and staff and the unwavering support of the University. To that end, we are grateful to the Department of War for this recognition, which is a testament to the service and character of not just the unit, but Notre Dame as a whole.”

Notre Dame supports the Naval ROTC program in many ways. Historically, the University’s presidents have participated in the annual pass-in-review and presentation of the Commander’s Cup award. The University provides active-duty staff with parking, tuition assistance, facilities access and inclusion in faculty social events. And it recognizes active-duty staff during home football games. The University also supports midshipmen by counting naval science classes toward degree completion and providing access to campus facilities.

The Naval ROTC unit supports both Notre Dame and the local community. Midshipmen collectively average 40 hours per week of community service to seven organizations. They work in conjunction with the assistant Marine officer instructor to provide mentorship, advisement and evaluation to six high school Junior ROTC programs in the area. They also support veteran events, including memorials, holidays and ceremonies, and provide color guard service through Notre Dame’s .

“This recognition reflects the commitment our Midshipmen make to selflessly serve our nation, as so many of our Naval ROTC program graduates have done for decades,” said Kenneth Heckel, the Sergeant John F. Crowley Director of the Office of Military and Veterans Affairs. “We are deeply grateful for the collective dedication of our students, faculty and staff in the Naval ROTC program, combined with the University’s support, that ensures our motto of ‘God, Country, Notre Dame’ rings true across our campus.”

Notre Dame’s long history of military service and training can be traced back to the University’s founding by Rev. Edward Sorin, C.S.C., in 1842. Just 16 years later, in 1858, a student military company called the Notre Dame Continental Cadets was formed. During the Civil War, many Congregation of Holy Cross priests and sisters served in varying capacities, with Rev. William Corby, C.S.C., Notre Dame’s third president, being the most notable for his granting absolution to the Union Army’s Irish Brigade at the Battle of Gettysburg.

On Christmas Eve 1862, three Holy Cross sisters boarded the U.S. Navy’s first hospital ship, the Red Rover, to serve as nurses for the wounded on both sides of the war. They traveled the Mississippi River carrying sick and wounded soldiers to various military hospitals. In so doing, they became what U.S. naval history today hails as the forerunners of the United States Navy Nurse Corps.

In the 1950s, Notre Dame became one of the first universities to host all three military branches with an affiliated ROTC program, with former University President , signing official documentation in 1951 for the formal establishment of the Army ROTC program.

The association between the University and the Department of Navy began in September 1941 with the formation of an NROTC unit under the command of Captain H. P. Burnett. The program offered a four-year course in naval science and tactics that led to a reserve commission. It did not pay tuition and often did not entail active-duty service after commissioning.

As the U.S. entered World War II, many changes occurred. 91��Ƶ were accelerated for all students, enabling them to finish their degrees in three years or less. The Navy expanded its officer training at Notre Dame, beginning in February 1942, with the V-7 program. Under this program, officer candidates were indoctrinated at Notre Dame and continued their training at Abbott Hall in Chicago or on the USS Prairie State, anchored in the Hudson River.

In September 1942, Notre Dame became a Midshipman Training Center, one of four in the nation.

Midshipmen completed four months of training before receiving a commission. In January 1943, 1,100 ensigns graduated from the program and became the first group of officers to receive all their training and be commissioned at Notre Dame.

In 1943, the Navy further expanded its officer accessions with the V-12 program. This program offered two 16-week semesters of academics, followed by further studies and training depending on the officer’s specialty. With the V-12 program, Notre Dame acquired a Marine detachment under the leadership of Capt. John W. Finney, USMCR. During this time, the NROTC program remained active, graduating its first class in February 1944.

As a result of such extensive involvement with the Navy, Notre Dame’s student body had a large military relationship in World War II. In 1944, there were 2,610 students enrolled; 1,771 of whom were in the military. Six hundred and thirty-nine were civilians, and 200 were students of religion. During the war, Notre Dame trained nearly 12,000 naval officers.

As the war ended, the various officer accession programs were phased out, and by 1945, only the NROTC program remained. Under the Holloway Plan, Notre Dame NROTC continued to prepare officers for the Navy and Marine Corps.

Esteemed graduates of Notre Dame’s ROTC programs include the only three four-star flag officers in Notre Dame history:, a 1987 Army ROTC graduate and U.S. Special Operations Commander;, a 1984 Navy ROTC graduate, retired vice chairman and former acting chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Notre Dame’s 2025 Commencement speaker; and ADM. William J. Houston, a 1990 Naval ROTC graduate and director of the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program. All are recipients of the.

The research group is led by Joseph Kahne, the Ted and Jo Dutton Presidential Professor at the UCR 91��Ƶ of Education, and is a joint effort with , the Packey J. Dee Professor of American Democracy in Notre Dame’s , and David Kidd, the chief assessment scientist for Harvard’s Democratic Knowledge Project.

The Civic Impact Project will receive $500,000 from the Carnegie Corporation of New York and $100,000 from the Stuart Foundation.

“This project will dig deep into understanding what America’s youth do and do not know about civic education,” said Campbell, who is also the director of Notre Dame’s . “To do so, we will develop new ways of measuring what young people are learning.”

Historically, funding for both civic education and civic education research has been limited. As a result, those seeking to make decisions on civic education often lack the evidence required to productively guide policy and practice, Kahne said. This funding aims to change that. The metrics developed will clarify ways in which education can support the pursuit of a more democratic society.

“The Civic Impact Project gives us the opportunity to bring researchers from many disciplines together with those working for change in schools to create new measures and then put them to use,” Kahne said.

This work will align with the Roadmap to Educating for American Democracy, a nonpartisan framework designed to improve K-12 civics and history education in the U.S. It was launched in 2021 with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the U.S. Department of Education, and was developed by more than 300 scholars, educators and practitioners from across the political spectrum.

“Many Americans are concerned about the state of civic education,” Campbell said. “But to improve it, we need to have yardsticks to know if we are making progress. This project will enable us to see what works to ensure that today’s youth are prepared to be active, engaged citizens.”

The Civic Impact Project is organizing scholars to develop research briefs and essential next steps for metric development. The briefs will be discussed and refined over the course of the project at two convenings. Building on the work completed during the grant period, the project plans to field-test the metrics in partnership with key stakeholders and districts.

Campbell, who will direct the effort alongside Kahne and Kidd, said that the grant will allow Notre Dame to host these convenings with civic education scholars.

“Many people are concerned about the state of the American republic,” Campbell said. “We see this as an opportunity to revive civic education. Our aim is to help America’s schools foster an informed, engaged citizenry.”

The was launched as part of the to establish Notre Dame as a global leader in the study of democracy, a convenor for conversations about and actions to preserve democracy, and a model for the formation of civically engaged citizens and public servants.

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

University of Notre Dame faculty members , , and have been inducted into the in recognition of their outstanding scholarly achievement.

Fassler, the Keough-Hesburgh Professor Emerita of Music History and Liturgy; Girgis, a professor of law; Gregory, a professor of history; and Kamat, the Rev. John A. Zahm Professor of Science; were recognized during an investiture ceremony on November 12 at the historic Decatur House in Washington, D.C.

They join a prestigious list of AASL members including Salman Rushdie, Jonathan Haidt, Steven Koonin, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Steven Pinker, Akhil Reed Amar and Nobel laureate scientists Arieh Warshel, Jennifer Doudna and David W.C. MacMillan.

Fassler is renowned for her work at the intersection of musicology, liturgical studies and theology and is a specialist in sacred music. She is a member of the North American Academy of Liturgy, a former president of the Medieval Academy of America, a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and an honorary member of the American Musicological Society. Her 2010 book “The Virgin of Chartres: Making History through Liturgy and the Arts” was awarded both the ACE/Mercers’ Award and the Otto Gründler Prize.

Girgis, who teaches constitutional law, is the author of “Debating Religious Liberty and Discrimination,” among other works. His work in constitutional law and theory has appeared in venues including the Columbia Law Review, the New York University Law Review, the American Journal of Jurisprudence and the Harvard Law Review Forum. Prior to his academic career, he clerked for both U.S. Court of Appeals D.C. Circuit Judge Thomas B. Griffith and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito.

A historian of Western Europe in the Reformation era, Gregory has analyzed the effects of early modern religious disagreement and religiopolitical conflict in the 16th and 17th centuries, as well as in the long-term shaping of Western modernity up to the present. His books have been awarded numerous prizes, including the Gustave O. Arlt Award in the Humanities of the Council of Graduate 91��Ƶs, the John Gilmary Shea Prize of American Catholic Historical Association and the Thomas J. Wilson Prize of Harvard University Press.

Kamat’s research aims to elucidate the mechanistic and kinetic details of charge transfer processes in nanostructured assemblies with an objective to improve energy conversion efficiencies. He is a fellow of numerous societies, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Chemical Society. Among other honors, he has won the Richard E. Smalley Award of The Electrochemical Society and the Henry H. Storch Award in Energy Chemistry of the American Chemical Society.

Four Notre Dame faculty were also invited to join the academy in 2024: Gary A. Anderson, the Hesburgh Professor of Catholic Thought; Paolo Carozza, a professor of law and concurrent professor of political science; Richard Garnett, the Paul J. Schierl Professor of Law and a concurrent professor of political science; and Christian Smith, the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Sociology.

The American Academy of Sciences and Letters promotes scholarship and honors outstanding achievement in the arts, sciences and learned professions. It supports learning by encouraging the exchange of ideas within academia and in society at large, and by sponsoring occasions for scholarly interaction and providing platforms for the presentation and dissemination of scholarship in the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, mathematics and engineering.

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

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, schools around the globe had to switch from regular, in-person classes to online learning overnight. This introduced numerous operational challenges, particularly in equipping students with quantitative skills essential for the labor market.

New research from the University of Notre Dame looks at how the abrupt move from classroom teaching to online learning during the lockdown affected college students’ performance in China.

Surprisingly, the undergraduates performed better in math after switching to online classes — improving their scores by about eight to 11 points on a 100-point scale, according to , the Howard J. and Geraldine F. Korth Associate Professor of Marketing at Notre Dame’s . Lu’s research, “,” is forthcoming in Production and Operations Management.

Along with Xintong Han from Laval University in Quebec City, Shane Wang from Virginia Tech and Nan Cui at Wuhan University in China, Lu analyzed more than 15,000 course records from nearly 8,000 students across nine universities. They compared students’ grades from before the pandemic, when they learned in person, to those during the lockdown when all classes moved online.

Results varied depending on the subject and the lockdown environment. Online learning worked especially well for reasoning-based subjects such as mathematics, where students could pause lectures, rewatch examples and practice problems at their own pace. In contrast, courses such as English that rely on discussion and interpretation, and are challenging to replicate effectively in virtual environments, benefited much less from the online format.

“Contrary to the widespread belief that online education is less effective than face-to-face instruction, our findings show that students actually performed better online, at least in quantitative subjects during the pandemic,” said Lu, who specializes in business analytics and digital marketing. “This challenges the traditional view that in-person learning is always superior and suggests that, under certain conditions, well-structured online environments can enhance learning outcomes.”

Results were linked to the strictness of stay-at-home orders or transportation bans to see how different types of governmental lockdown policies shaped learning outcomes. Using rigorous econometric methods, the researchers made sure that the improvements they observed were due to the switch to online learning and not other unrelated factors.

They found that stricter stay-at-home orders issued by the government raised psychological stress and reduced the effectiveness of online learning. However, these negative effects were partially offset when workplace closures and public transportation suspensions helped some people maintain focus and discipline.

One possible explanation is that as parents were more frequently home due to employment interruptions, they were better positioned to ensure their children attended virtual classes, remained focused on tasks and followed a structured schedule. Meanwhile, suspension of public transportation reduced opportunities for social outings and non-academic distractions, effectively creating a quieter, more focused study environment at home.

“Our results show that online education when done thoughtfully can be more than just a backup plan during emergencies,” Lu said. “It can be an effective tool for learning, especially in analytical subjects.”

For educators, this means designing online courses that take advantage of digital tools — such as interactive exercises or on-demand videos — rather than simply moving lectures onto Zoom. For policymakers, it highlights that not all lockdown policies have the same effect on educational outcomes. Strict stay-at-home orders hurt learning, but moderate workplace closures that allow parents to supervise their children help to improve outcomes.

“These insights can help schools and governments better prepare for future disruptions — whether from pandemics, natural disasters or other emergencies — by understanding how to balance safety and learning effectiveness,” Lu said.

The study shows that online learning programs need to be flexible and designed with the specific course material and students’ physical location in mind.

Contact: Shijie Lu, 574-631-5883, slyu@nd.edu

Forced displacement has surged in recent years, fueling a global crisis. Over the past decade, the number of displaced people worldwide has nearly doubled, according to the United Nations’ refugee agency. In 2024 alone, one in 67 people fled their homes.

A new study co-authored by University of Notre Dame researcher shows that analyzing social media posts can help experts predict when people will move during crises, supporting faster and more effective aid delivery. The study highlights how powerful computational tools can help address major global challenges to human dignity.

“Traditional data, such as surveys, are extremely difficult to collect during forced migration crises,” said Marahrens, assistant professor of computational social science in Notre Dame’s . “As early warning systems evolve, artificial intelligence and new digital data can help improve them. Ultimately this can help strengthen humanitarian responses, saving lives and reducing suffering.”

Providing timely aid to displaced people

The study, published in , analyzed three case studies. In Ukraine, 10.6 million people were displaced following Russia’s 2022 invasion. In Sudan, approximately 12.8 million people were displaced following a civil war that broke out in April 2023. And in Venezuela, about 7 million people have been displaced in recent years because of multiple economic crises.

Researchers reviewed almost 2 million social media posts in three languages on X (formerly Twitter). They found that sentiment (positive, negative or neutral) was a more reliable signal for predicting when people were about to move than emotion (joy, anger or fear). Sentiment was particularly helpful at predicting the timing and volume of cross-border movements.

After comparing several approaches for analyzing social media posts, researchers found that pretrained language models provided the most effective early warning. These AI tools are trained on massive amounts of text using deep learning, a method that helps computers learn patterns much like the human brain.

“Our findings will help researchers refine models to predict how people move during conflict or disasters,” Marahrens said.

Social media analysis seems to work best in conflict settings such as Ukraine, Marahrens said, but not as well in economic crises such as the ones Venezuela experienced, which unfolded more slowly.

He cautioned that such analyses can trigger false alarms. They are most valuable as an early trigger for deeper investigation, he said, particularly when combined with traditional data sources such as economic indicators and on-the-ground reports.

Future work could explore connections between sentiment and emotion, focusing on where they connect and diverge, Marahrens said. It could also examine how automated translation services could help researchers analyze more languages. Finally, future research could include data from additional social media networks.

“Together, these improvements could help strengthen these tools,” Marahrens said, “making them more helpful for policymakers and humanitarian organizations that work with displaced people.”

Marahrens, who joined Notre Dame this fall, works on a variety of issues related to globalization and inequality, applying his computational social science expertise to a range of research projects. He is affiliated with the Keough 91��Ƶ’s as well as the University’s .

The study received funding from the National Science Foundation and from Georgetown University’s Massive Data Institute.

Originally published by Josh Stowe at on Nov. 17.

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

, vice president and associate provost for academic space and support at the University of Notre Dame, has been appointed the Edward H. Arnold Dean of the by University President

Meserve, who has served as interim library dean since August 2024, now begins a five-year term.

“The Hesburgh Libraries are vital to Notre Dame’s aspirations to be the leading global Catholic research university,” Father Dowd said. “Over her 20-year career at the University, Margaret has demonstrated exceptional leadership and dedication to Notre Dame’s mission, including most recently as interim dean, earning the respect and admiration of her colleagues. I am confident that under her guidance, the libraries will continue to advance the University’s research, teaching and learning goals while fostering Notre Dame’s engagement with the global scholarly community.”

, the Charles and Jill Fischer Provost, said Meserve was well-suited to her new role. “Margaret is an unusually gifted administrator,” he said. “She possesses vision, superb communications skills and a deep commitment to Notre Dame. All of this has been in evidence in her multiple roles at Notre Dame.”

Meserve was appointed vice president and associate provost for academic space and support in 2023. Prior to that, she served as associate dean for the humanities and faculty affairs and director of space planning in the and co-director of the .

“A professor of history, Margaret is passionate about rare books and special collections, sophisticated in her use of data and a leading scholar of the history of the book,” McGreevy noted. “The search committee praised her work as interim dean, her compelling vision for the library and her commitment to deepening the engagement of the libraries with all of Notre Dame’s colleges and schools.”

In her continued capacity as vice president and associate provost, Meserve will maintain oversight of the , the and the . She will be handing off her current duties related to academic space and support to Vice President and Associate Provost by the end of the academic year.

As dean, Meserve will lead a team of nearly 140 faculty and staff members at the flagship Hesburgh Library — which houses the Navari Family Center for Digital Scholarship, the Medieval Institute Library, the University Archives and Rare Books & Special Collections — and three specialty libraries located across the Notre Dame campus (architecture, business and music).

“I’m honored and excited to continue working with our expert library faculty and staff to strengthen support for research, teaching and the preservation of knowledge at Notre Dame for generations to come,” Meserve said. “And I look forward to advancing new initiatives in information literacy, digital collections and scholarly communication that will advance the Hesburgh Libraries as a leader among university research libraries.”

Meserve received her bachelor’s degree in classics from Harvard and her master’s and doctorate in Renaissance history from the University of London. She taught at Princeton for two years before coming to Notre Dame in 2003. She has won fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the American Council of Learned Societies, and she is a fellow of the American Academy in Rome.

In her research and teaching, Meserve focuses on the Italian Renaissance and the histories of printing and book production, history writing, humanist culture and the papacy in the 15th and 16th centuries. Both her undergraduate and graduate courses often make use of the Hesburgh Libraries’ rare books and manuscripts as a way to introduce students to the material evidence of history. Her most recent book, “Papal Bull: Print, Politics, and Propaganda in Renaissance Rome,” for the most distinguished work in Italian history published in 2021.

She is currently working on a translation of the “Commentaries” of Pope Pius II, a Renaissance pope known for his scholarship and the only pope ever to compose an autobiography while in office.

Father Dowd extended to the Holy Father the good wishes, prayers and support of the entire Notre Dame community. The discussion centered on the role Notre Dame and other Catholic universities can play in serving the Church, addressing the challenges of our times, and fostering human flourishing. The Holy Father expressed gratitude for Notre Dame’s many contributions as a global Catholic research university, and he encouraged Notre Dame to continue its efforts to build bridges.

Father Dowd presented Pope Leo with a sculpture of St. John Henry Newman, created by the late Rev. Anthony J. Lauck, C.S.C., a longtime professor of art at Notre Dame. St. Newman was named co-patron saint of Catholic universities, colleges and schools and declared a doctor of the Church by Pope Leo on Nov. 1.

The audience concluded with Pope Leo bestowing a blessing upon those gathered and upon all who are part of the Notre Dame family.

In the course of a four-day visit to Rome, the Notre Dame delegation also met with Vatican officials from the various dicasteries — departments within the Holy See — with whom the University has established partnerships.

Father Gutiérrez, a Peruvian priest and pioneer of liberation theology, passed away last year at age 96. But scholars and students now have a new opportunity to learn from him — by exploring a digital archive of Father Gutiérrez’s own words.

On Friday (Nov. 14), the University of Notre Dame will host a symposium, commemorating the life and work of Father Gutiérrez and announcing the joint opening of the Gustavo Gutiérrez Merino, O.P. Collection — a 50-year archive of audio recordings from his theological conferences with Church leaders and scholars, from 1971 to 2020.

The event, which is part of the on the theme of “Cultivating Hope,” will also celebrate the posthumous publication of Father Gutiérrez’s “Vivir y pensar el Dios de los pobres.” Co-sponsored by the��, the , the and the , the symposium is free and open to all.

The archive will be available at only three locations worldwide: the Hesburgh Libraries at Notre Dame, the Instituto Bartolomé de las Casas in Lima and the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú in Lima.

“Gustavo attested that his theological work was ‘más que la palabra escrita’ (more than the written word),” said Timothy Matovina, a professor of theology. “This half century of his audio recordings from his live annual exchanges with pastoral leaders, activists, theologians and other scholars is one of the great treasures in the Gutiérrez archives.

“These resources — which until now even many advanced Gutiérrez scholars did not know about — will advance theological and other critical work on Father Gutiérrez’s thought for decades to come.”

The University has worked in partnership with Instituto Bartolomé and the Pontificia Universidad Católica for more than 10 years to digitize the archives, with funding from , Hesburgh Libraries, the Cushwa Center, the Department of Theology, the and the .

“This archive is an invaluable addition to the extensive Catholic research collections held by Hesburgh Libraries and the University Archives,” said Erika Hosselkus, associate dean of the Hesburgh Libraries. “Through this ongoing collaboration with our partners at the Instituto Bartolomé de las Casas and the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, these unique recordings and the notes and outlines that accompany them will be preserved and available in perpetuity.

“It is rare for an archive to hold a nearly uninterrupted series of recordings spanning a half century. The scope and depth of the archive — and the extensive descriptions and transcriptions created by our partners in Lima — make it accessible to both experts and students here at Notre Dame and in Peru.”

The Cushwa Center will offer funding for scholars who may wish to visit the archives — which must be accessed in person — through their . The center has also established the to support projects in theology, history and the social sciences that engage or broadly take inspiration from Father Gutiérrez’s work on the preferential option for the poor.

“Gutiérrez’s way of doing theology is crucial for understanding the pastoral contribution of the Global South for the universal church in the 21st century, especially after Pope Francis,” said David Lantigua, an associate professor of theology and the William W. and Anna Jean Cushwa Co-Director of the Cushwa Center. “These nearly 50 years of conferences from Peru in Spanish on theological topics ranging from the Bible to the current ecological crisis offer unprecedented access to his brilliant mind and his love for the Church and the poor through teaching students.”

Father Gutiérrez, who was born in Lima, pursued studies in Leuven, Belgium; Lyon, France; and Rome as a young seminarian. He returned home in 1960 to serve in a parish and began teaching theology at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú. And, in 1965, he participated in the fourth session of the Second Vatican Council.

His landmark text, “Teología de la liberación: Perspectivas,” was published in Spanish in 1971 and in English in 1973 as “A Theology of Liberation: History, Politics, and Salvation.” His writings have been translated into more than a dozen languages and have left an indelible mark on Christian theology globally. Father Gutiérrez was named to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2002 and received more than 30 honorary degrees. He taught at the University of Notre Dame from 2001 until his retirement in 2018.

“Father Gustavo sometimes referred to these conferences in his own writings so his readers could explore in greater depth his theology that gives reasons for hope to the poor through the saving love of Jesus Christ,” Lantigua said. “Now scholars and students can appreciate even more the subtlety, originality and evolution of his vivacious thought, always tinged with his characteristic sense of humor.

“With these conferences made available through the collaboration of three institutions where Father Gustavo taught generations of students and faculty, his theological legacy will continue to grow and expand for a global Church amid a world facing the most drastic wealth inequality ever witnessed in history.”

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

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Researchers hope that pinpointing pH-sensitive structures in proteins would help them determine how proteins respond to pH changes in normal and diseased cells alike and, ultimately, to design drugs to treat these diseases.

Now, in a new study out today in , researchers at the University of Notre Dame present a computational process that can scan hundreds of proteins in a few days, screening for pH-sensitive protein structures.

“Before even picking up a pipette or running a single experiment, we can predict which proteins are sensitive to these pH changes, which proteins actually drive these critical processes like division, migration, cancer development and neurodegenerative disease development,” said , the Clare Boothe Luce Assistant Professor in the “No more searching for the needle in the haystack.”

Determining exactly how pH changes affect the behavior-driving proteins on a molecular level has been a challenge because researchers must laboriously test individual proteins in a signaling pathway for pH sensitivity one by one. Across biology, only 70 cytoplasmic proteins have been confirmed as pH-sensitive — though researchers hypothesize that there are many, many more — and of those, the molecular mechanisms of only 20 are known.

The new study, supported by funding from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, developed and validated a modular, computational pipeline that predicts the location of pH-sensitive structures based on existing structural and experimental data.

In the process of developing the pipeline, White’s research group predicted and validated the pH sensitivity of a distinctive binding module known as the Src homology 2 (SH2) domain, which appears in proteins crucial for cell signaling, immune response and development, as well as the pH-dependent function of c-Src, an intensively studied enzyme that is activated in many cancers.

“These proteins are central to cell regulation in addition to being mutated in certain cancers, and in addition to showing that they are pH-sensitive, we’ve also found exactly where on the protein the pH regulation is occurring,” explained Papa Kobina Van Dyck, the lead study author and a recent doctoral graduate in . “We’ve managed to condense 25 years of work into a few weeks.”

“In addition to cancer and neurodegeneration, pH dynamics are associated with diabetes, autoimmune disorders and traumatic brain injury,” White said. “Our pipeline is a powerful tool for understanding and, ultimately, designing treatments for these conditions, with the potential to transform the field.”

To read the complete news story, visit .

Contact: Brandi Wampler, associate director of media relations, 574-631-2632, brandiwampler@nd.edu

Funded by a generous $15 million gift from Notre Dame alumnus Bill Angrick and his wife, Stephanie, the program will be housed within the . It will provide funds for up to 10 Angrick Military Scholars in each cohort.

The University, which has had a strong and valued relationship with the U.S. military for generations, is home to one of the nation’s largest ROTC programs outside of service academies and military colleges. In 2017, Notre Dame established the to expand its support for University-enrolled veterans and their families, active-duty and ROTC students and those who are dependents of service members.

“We are deeply grateful to the Angrick family for their generosity, vision and commitment to Notre Dame’s distinctive mission as a force for good,” said , president of the University. “By expanding access to a Notre Dame education for military-affiliated students, we honor the extraordinary sacrifice of these students and their families and prepare them to be exceptional leaders in their chosen fields. At the same time, our campus community is immeasurably enriched by their presence and by their example of dedication to our nation and to the common good.”

When selecting Angrick Military Scholars, preference will be given to eligible U.S. military and Coast Guard veterans who enroll in the Notre Dame MBA program, with first preference going to MBA candidates with families.

Each qualified scholar will receive $30,000 per year in wraparound funding, which may be used to cover relocation, housing and child care expenses. This funding is in addition to any merit-based or other financial awards the scholar may receive.

“We are deeply grateful to Bill and Stephanie Angrick for their generosity,” said , the Martin J. Gillen Dean of the Mendoza College of Business. “With this gift, the Notre Dame MBA will provide the most comprehensive financial support available to families of qualified military students. The Angrick Military Scholars Program will help us attract outstanding military and veteran leaders whose experience and service align with the mission and values of our MBA program and the entire Notre Dame community.”

The gift will also recognize one or more Angrick Scholars annually as Naticchia Fellows, based on their personal, academic and military service records, leadership potential and alignment with the mission of Notre Dame. The fellowship is named in honor of Marine Corps veteran Robert D. Naticchia, the late father of Stephanie (Naticchia) Angrick.

“The Angrick family’s transformational gift will ensure that Notre Dame is the premier institution for military leaders who embody high moral character, outstanding leadership and love of country for years to come,” said Ken Heckel, director of the Office of Military and Veterans Affairs. “These young people have served their country, and now the Angricks have empowered us to repay their service in a truly meaningful way.”

The Angricks have a long history of supporting the University of Notre Dame. This latest gift joins previous contributions to endow the construction of the Stayer Center third-floor executive lounge and offices and ESTEEM graduate program internships, as well as participation on the��Cavanaugh and Jesse Harper Councils.

Bill Angrick, a longtime member of the Business Advisory Council for the Mendoza College of Business, received a bachelor’s degree in business from Notre Dame in 1990 and an MBA from Northwestern University in 1995. He is the co-founder, chair and chief executive officer of Liquidity Services Inc., a leading circular economy e-commerce marketplace. He is also founder of Persimmon Capital Partners, a private investment company, and serves on the board of Big Brothers Big Sisters of the National Capitol Area. Stephanie Angrick earned a bachelor’s degree from Princeton University and a DDS from the University of Maryland. The Angricks, who reside in Flagler Beach, Florida, are parents to William Alexander “Will” Angrick and Matthew August “Matt” Angrick. A 2025 graduate of the Mendoza College of Business, Will Angrick is currently a graduate business student at the University and a member of the Fighting Irish men’s lacrosse team.

“We are humbled and delighted to help launch this new program and to see its impact grow over time,” Bill Angrick said. “We look forward to helping Notre Dame attract outstanding military veteran leaders with high potential so that the University’s MBA program can prepare these leaders to make an even greater positive impact on society.”

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

Notre Dame is among three academic institutions to sign the UAOA Charter, joining a global coalition committed to safeguarding athletes and fostering a culture of respect in digital spaces.

Driven by Notre Dame’s , this agreement marks the FIA’s first academic collaboration in the United States. The initiative will produce research, digital literacy tools and policy recommendations to strengthen global efforts in protecting athletes from online abuse.

“This collaboration is a natural extension of Notre Dame’s mission as a force for good through research and education,” said , the Frank M. Freimann Professor of Computer Science and Engineering in the , founding director of the Lucy Family Institute for Data & Society, and Lucy Family Director for Data and AI Academic Strategy at Notre Dame. “We are excited to work with the FIA and to support the UAOA to create actionable solutions at the intersection of sports, AI and public policy.”

Chawla, the project’s principal investigator, will work with researchers at the Lucy Family Institute for Data & Society to investigate both the underlying causes and the visible impacts of online harassment targeting athletes. Through a combination of qualitative and quantitative research, the study aims to model the prevalence, nature and long-term consequences of this growing issue.

"This collaboration represents an important step forward in our mission to combat online abuse across all levels of sport. I look forward to working with the University of Notre Dame, one of the world’s leading research institutions, to explore innovative, AI-powered solutions and to develop evidence-based strategies to ensure a safer and more inclusive sporting environment for all. Our joint goal is to foster a safer inclusive online environment for athletes, teams and fans worldwide,” said Mohammed Ben Sulayem, FIA President and UAOA Founder.

Findings will directly contribute to the , expanding the evidence base for policymakers, athletic organizations and digital platforms. In addition, the collaboration will develop youth-focused digital literacy tools, including an AI-powered learning platform, designed to promote safer, more respectful online communities. Together, these efforts will advance understanding of online abuse while equipping the next generation with resources to reduce its harm.

Notre Dame’s insights will inform preventive strategies and athlete support programs. Additionally, in collaboration with FIA, the findings may contribute to new policy recommendations and practical guidelines for key stakeholders, including international sports federations, government regulators focused on online safety, tech platforms managing content moderation and schools and youth organizations promoting digital citizenship.

Emphasizing the broad significance of the project, Chawla added, “This collaboration shows how data and AI can advance common good. By turning research into real-world solutions for a growing challenge in sports, we put athlete well-being first—purposeful AI in action.”

The collaboration is supported by the FIA and the FIA Foundation to support the educational components.��

Contact: Brandi Wampler, associate director of media relations, 574-631-2632, brandiwampler@nd.edu

The University of Notre Dame and Under Armour announced a new, long-term and unprecedented partnership to pursue innovation through joint research. Over the next decade, both organizations will co-invest in research initiatives that span multiple colleges and disciplines, and allow Notre Dame’s faculty, staff and student researchers to work alongside Under Armour personnel to identify research questions and design solutions for impact on campus and beyond.

“Notre Dame and Under Armour already have a long-standing partnership focused on driving excellence on the playing field and shaping elite student-athletes,” said , the John and Catherine Martin Family Vice President for Research and professor in the . “We are thrilled by this evolution in our relationship, which will similarly drive excellence in the research lab and shape the next generation of elite scientific, engineering and business innovators.”

A key focus of the research collaborations will build upon the University’s long-standing expertise in materials and environmental science. This will include testing recyclable, biodegradable or low-impact fabrics and polymers; exploring the environmental impact of garment degradation; and researching novel polymer materials. Other initiatives will leverage Notre Dame’s established student-athlete health and performance testing protocols to evaluate Under Armour prototypes in the real world. Such cooperative testing will also enable the tailoring of products to meet the precise needs of Notre Dame student-athletes as they adapt to the ongoing effects of intense training and the travel inherent in college athletics.

“While standing on this strong internal foundation, partnering with Under Armour will add a new dimension of industry expertise that elevates our efforts to bring innovations from the lab to the playing field.”

In addition, the partnership will explore opportunities to leverage the University’s advanced capabilities in computation and predictive modeling to enhance performance insights and product development to better serve student-athletes at Notre Dame and across the country.

“At Under Armour, innovation is hardwired into everything we do — that includes designing and manufacturing products that help athletes at the highest levels gain that extra competitive edge, and that fulfill our core commitment to thinking, acting and operating sustainably,” said Kyle Blakely, Senior Vice President, Innovation, Development and Testing at Under Armour. “This is a perfect partnership because it will combine Under Armour’s expertise in producing the best-performing gear and apparel on the market with Notre Dame’s world-class research in materials and environmental science. Providing athletes with performance solutions that simultaneously help protect the planet is the dream, and through this partnership we’ll be able to get even closer to making that dream a reality.”

By engaging Under Armour’s commercial expertise in human performance and athletic product development on campus, the partnership also enables educational and professional advancement for undergraduate and graduate students, including research experiences, internships and employment opportunities.

The new agreement will further strengthen internal ties between and Notre Dame Athletics. Earlier this year, the two units awarded three research teams the first-ever , which provide funding to support exceptional research projects that contribute meaningfully to fields related to human health, well-being and performance.

“We are incredibly pleased with the momentum Athletics and Research have already built together,” said , the Pat and Jana Eilers Senior Associate Athletics Director for Sports Performance. “While standing on this strong internal foundation, partnering with Under Armour will add a new dimension of industry expertise that elevates our efforts to bring innovations from the lab to the playing field.”

To learn more about the ways Notre Dame Research is partnering with Notre Dame Athletics on research facilities, infrastructure, opportunities and funding related to the science of elite performance, contact sportsperformance@nd.edu or athleticsresearch-list@nd.edu.

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Contact: Erin Fennessy, writing program manager, Notre Dame Research, efenness@nd.edu, 574-631-8183

Sponsored by the Institute for Social Concerns, the annual lecture was created in 2009 to highlight justice issues and themes from Catholic social tradition related to human dignity and the common good. Dr. Donald Zimmer, an emergency medical specialist with Beacon Health System in South Bend, will introduce Catena.

Catena’s lecture, titled “Hope and Healing,” is also part of the , which is organized around the theme “Cultivating Hope.”

The event is free and open to the public.

“Catena embodies the spirit of Father Bernie and his ‘theory of enough,’ making him the perfect choice for this year’s lecture,” said , the Leo and Arlene Hawk Executive Director of the . “Undetered by restrictions on humanitarian aid and working with limited resources in Sudan, Catena has been able to make an outsized impact in a war-torn region that has been largely abandoned by larger Western relief organizations. His work and his story are truly inspiring.”

Catena is an American physician who has been practicing in Gidel in the Nuba Mountains of Sudan since 2008. The region has been an area of active conflict since the mid-1980s, and Catena is the only surgeon for the surrounding population of 750,000 people. Catena credits his Catholic faith for his work and says he is inspired by St. Francis of Assisi. He is known by locals as “Dr. Tom” and is widely respected by the population.

In 2015, Catena was named to the Time 100. In 2017, he was awarded the second annual Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity. And in 2024, he was awarded the Theodore Roosevelt Award, the highest honor the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) may confer on an individual. He has also been awarded honorary doctorates from Brown University (2016), Yerevan State Medical University (2017) and Duke University (2022).

Catena is chair of the .

This year’s lecture is co-sponsored by the , , , , , , , , , , , , ��and the .

Learn more at .

Originally published by David Cramer at on Nov. 3.

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

Since its founding, the University of Notre Dame has sought to address the world’s most pressing challenges through scholarship, partnership and service. Responding to the growing urgency of environmental change requires precisely this kind of collaboration, bringing together universities, researchers and communities to create solutions that are just, sustainable and grounded in shared responsibility for our planet.

Inspired in part by Pope Francis’s call in Laudato si’ to care for “our common home,” in the for more than a decade. The University recognizes that the decisions and collaborations emerging from COP have a profound impact on global research, policy and innovation.

This November, COP30 will convene in Belém, Brazil. Capitalizing on Notre Dame’s presence in São Paulo, and will host a conference together with and the , the week before the international climate summit.

The two-day program is titled “,” a nod to the of “Cultivating Hope,” and it aims to bring together faculty from across departments at Notre Dame and universities in Brazil to explore the role of research in shaping just and hopeful climate solutions. The conference will be held at the University of São Paulo (USP), one of the leading universities in Latin America, and will feature representatives from several Notre Dame units including the Notre Dame Global Adaptation Initiative, Environmental Change Initiative, Notre Dame Research, the Center for Research Computing, the Keough 91��Ƶ of Global Affairs, the Mendoza College of Business, the College of Engineering and the College of Science. Panelists and speakers include the following Notre Dame faculty: Alvaro Acosto Serrano, Diogo Bolster, Jessica McManus Warnell, Jarek Nabrzyski, Ray Offenheiser, Sandra Vera-Munoz and Danielle Wood.

Notre Dame São Paulo Director shared: “Hosting the ‘Bridging Worlds’ program here in São Paulo highlights the University of Notre Dame’s commitment to building meaningful global partnerships. Notre Dame São Paulo serves as a bridge between Notre Dame and leading Brazilian institutions, enabling faculty and students to connect and collaborate on innovative solutions for pressing global challenges. We are proud to provide a space for shared research, dialogue and impact.”

Notre Dame faculty and faculty from preeminent institutions across São Paulo and Brazil will have the opportunity to build and strengthen research partnerships through working sessions and networking events. The sessions will prioritize collaborative work between the faculty members, while alumni and other friends of the University from the region will engage around the conference themes and stakeholder partners.

The evening before the conference begins, the Notre Dame Alumni Association and the Notre Dame Club of Brazil are sponsoring a on the theme of ethical leadership and sustainability to be held at Insper, a nonprofit higher education research institution. The lecture will feature Rex and Alice A. Martin Faculty Director of the Notre Dame Deloitte Center for Ethical Leadership and director of the McKenna Center for Human Development and Global Business . An Insper faculty member will serve as a respondent, offering reflections and local perspectives on the themes of ethical leadership and sustainability.

The lecture will provide the ideal introduction to the conference, inspiring conversations about climate risk assessment, sustainability, adaptive livelihoods, just transitions and more in the days to follow. Ultimately, the “Bridging Worlds” program hopes to be a catalyst for impactful research and partnerships between Brazil and Notre Dame.

“Notre Dame’s identity as a global Catholic research university compels us to engage in these conversations,” said , vice president and associate provost for internationalization at the University of Notre Dame. “Our faculty members and those of our partner institutions possess a wealth of knowledge on the subject of climate and sustainability, and by bringing them together, we are working towards a deeper understanding of how our local and global systems are intertwined.”

Originally published by Jessie Carson at on Oct. 27.

Contact: Tracy DeStazio, associate director of media relations, 574-631-9958 or tdestazi@nd.edu, and��Jessica Sieff, associate director of media relations, 574-631-3933 or jsieff@nd.edu