Fisher is currently chair of the Fischell Department of Bioengineering at the University of Maryland, where he is Distinguished University Professor, MPower Professor, and Distinguished Scholar-Teacher. At Notre Dame, he will succeed , who retired in December as inaugural director of BELS and Arthur J. Schmitt Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry.

The Bioengineering & Life Sciences Initiative is a joint effort of the  and the and is a key priority in the University’s . The initiative advances human health and wellness through interdisciplinary biomedical research and training — from fundamental discoveries through detection, prevention and treatment of disease. Emphasizing accessible health care solutions, BELS brings together researchers from a variety of fields to create transformative solutions for health.

“This appointment reflects both the strength of the foundation already in place — thanks to Paul’s superb leadership — and our aspirations for the future of Bioengineering & Life Sciences at Notre Dame,” said John T. McGreevy, Notre Dame’s Charles and Jill Fischer Provost. “John Fisher is a visionary leader and excellent scholar-teacher whose experience aligns perfectly with the initiative’s trajectory and Notre Dame’s ambitions as the leading global Catholic research university.”

Fisher holds bachelor’s degrees in chemical engineering and biomedical engineering from Johns Hopkins University, a master’s in chemical engineering from the University of Cincinnati and a doctorate in bioengineering from Rice University. He joined Maryland’s Department of Chemical Engineering in 2003 and three years later became a founding member of the bioengineering department he now chairs. During his two decades at Maryland, Fisher has won a variety of awards for teaching excellence, graduate student mentorship and scholarship, including a National Science Foundation CAREER award and a Fulbright. In 2024, he was appointed Distinguished University Professor, the institution’s highest honor for a tenured faculty member, recognizing excellence, impact and significant contribution to the field both nationally and internationally.

“We are thrilled to have John, who is an extraordinary biomedical engineer, join us in the college and lead the BELS Initiative,” said Patricia Culligan, the Matthew H. McCloskey Dean of the College of Engineering. “Advancing research and training in bioengineering is among our highest priorities for the College of Engineering, and I look forward to working with him to elevate collaborations within our college and across science, engineering and other units on campus.”

As director of the , Fisher leads a research team that focuses on computational modeling and tissue engineering, bioprinting, and bioreactors for the regeneration of lost tissues. He also directs the , which aims to create a broad community focusing on 3D printing and bioprinting for regenerative medicine applications.

Fisher has served in numerous leadership positions in his field, including as the 2025 chair of the Council of Chairs, a national assembly of bioengineering and biomedical engineering department chairs, and as 2018-20 chair of the Americas Chapter of the Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine International Society. Fisher is a fellow of the International Academy of Medical and Biological Engineering, the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering and the Biomedical Engineering Society. He is currently a member of the society’s board of directors and co-editor-in-chief of Tissue Engineering. His work has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Defense and the Food and Drug Administration, among others.

“What attracted me to Notre Dame is the excellence and rigor of the research,” Fisher said. “The types of questions people in science and engineering are exploring, and the execution of their research programs, is really top-notch. I’m also a big believer that we’re here to educate as well as to do research. I love teaching, and I love Notre Dame’s commitment to teaching.

“What really speaks to me is the mission — the commitment to pursue research and to educate at the highest level, but doing it in a way that positively impacts society. There are some personal things as well. I grew up in the Midwest, our family is Irish Catholic, so it’s wonderful to bring that aspect of who I am together with my work.”

Fisher joins the University at a pivotal moment for the Bioengineering & Life Sciences Initiative, as it accelerates efforts to expand research, training and shared infrastructure.

Since its launch in 2024, the . It has identified core research themes and awarded nearly $1.25 million in seed funding to support multidisciplinary teams working in areas such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, global health and emerging infectious threats. It has also expanded training opportunities for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows and made major investments in shared research infrastructure — including the acquisition of a Glacios 2 cryo-TEM microscope, the first of its kind at Notre Dame, scheduled for installation in April, along with complementary efforts to restructure flow cytometry resources.

To learn more about the Bioengineering & Life Sciences Initiative, visit .

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 , 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 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 , 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

About one quarter of inmates have a serious mental illness and 63 percent 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 , an assistant research professor in the who works in Notre Dame’s .

“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 percent drop in behavioral incidents and a 50 percent drop in physical assaults on other inmates or officers.

Batistich, along with co-authors , 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 , 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 percent 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

Election to the NAE is among the highest professional distinctions accorded to an engineer. Members are selected by their peers for pioneering advancements in their fields and for leadership in major engineering endeavors, including the development and implementation of innovative approaches to engineering education.

“I am honored and humbled to have been elected to such a distinguished group of scholars,” said , who also serves as an associate vice president of research. “I am grateful to my colleagues and students here at Notre Dame who I have had the privilege to work with in the development and application of molecular simulation methods to help tackle some of the most challenging problems in energy and sustainability facing society.”

Maginn is a globally recognized leader in research linking the physical properties of materials to their chemical composition. The NAE is recognizing him “for development and application of molecular modeling and simulation of complex systems involving slow dynamics and long-ranged interactions.”

Maginn’s research has had a major impact on chemical engineering by enabling engineers to design and optimize materials and processes at the molecular level for energy and environmental applications. By developing widely used computational tools and design methods, his research allows engineers to predict material performance before materials are synthesized, reducing development time, cost and risk. These advances have helped move molecular simulation from a specialized research tool into a practical engineering approach used in academia, industry and national laboratories worldwide.

A pioneer in the use of molecular simulations to investigate ionic liquids, Maginn developed new algorithms and open-source simulation tools that made predictive modeling of charged fluids both accurate and broadly accessible. He holds nine patents in this field, and his work led to the development of the open-source Monte Carlo package Cassandra, most commonly used to compute the thermodynamic properties of fluids.

“Ed Maginn’s foundational research in molecular simulation has helped shape modern chemical engineering,” said , the Matthew H. McCloskey Dean of the College of Engineering. “His election to the National Academy of Engineering is a fitting recognition of his scientific leadership, innovation and lasting impact on the field.”

Maginn’s work has directly informed the development of new materials for carbon capture, energy storage, separations and sustainable refrigeration. He is to the , a National Science Foundation-funded Engineering Research Center, alongside 11 other Notre Dame faculty members. He also participates in two Energy Frontier Research Centers supported by the Department of Energy: and .

Maginn has published more than 270 peer-reviewed papers with more than 34,000 citations. He has written 10 book chapters. Maginn has been a senior editor of the and served on the editorial boards for leading publications in his field, including the , and the .

“I extend my heartfelt congratulations to Ed on the remarkable achievement of election to the NAE,” said , the John and Catherine Martin Family Vice President for Research and professor in the . “He is both a top researcher and highly respected administrator and educator — such an outstanding recognition for his tremendous research impact and national leadership is well-deserved.”

Since joining the Notre Dame faculty in 1995, Maginn has served as chair of the , as well as associate dean for academic programs in the . Maginn is also recognized for his excellence in teaching, having received Notre Dame’s highest honors for faculty instruction: the James A. Burns, C.S.C., Award for Distinction in Graduate Education in 2018 and the Rev. Edmund P. Joyce, C.S.C., Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching in 2022. In addition, Maginn has mentored more than 35 doctoral students and over 20 postdoctoral scholars. He is a trustee and executive director of the nonprofit , which promotes the use of computational methods in chemical engineering.

Maginn was in 2023. He was recently honored with the Ernest Thiele Award from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers in 2021 and the Iowa State University College of Engineering Professional Achievement Citation in Engineering (PACE) award in 2020. Maginn is a fellow of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, the American Chemical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Maginn graduated from Iowa State University with a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering, followed by a doctorate in chemical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley.

With his election to the NAE, Maginn joins a distinguished group of Notre Dame colleagues who have also received this honor, including , the Robert M. Moran Professor of Engineering; , professor emeritus of chemical and biomolecular engineering; , the Clifford and Evelyn Brosey Professor Emeritus of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering; Steve Walker, professor of the practice; and , the Huisking Foundation, Inc. Collegiate Research Professor.

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

This intricate communication network is built of billions of neurons connected by synapses and managed and modified by glial cells. When neurons die, this communication network is disrupted and since this loss is irreversible, neuron death causes sensory loss, motor impairment and cognitive decline.

An interdisciplinary team of researchers from the University of Notre Dame is investigating the mechanisms of neuron death caused by chronic compression — such as the pressure exerted by a brain tumor — to better understand how to prevent neuron loss.

Published in the , their study found that chronic compression triggers neuron death by a variety of mechanisms, both directly and indirectly. The research is helping lay the groundwork for identifying therapies to prevent indirect neuron death.

“The impetus for this project was to figure out those underlying mechanisms. In cancer research, most researchers are focused on the tumor itself, but in the meantime, while the tumor is sitting there and growing, it’s damaging the organ that it’s living in,” said , the Jane Schoelch DeFlorio Collegiate Professor of at Notre Dame and co-lead author of the study. “We fully believe that these growth-induced mechanical forces of the tumor as it expands is part of the reason we see damage in the brain.”

As an engineer who leads the , Datta studies the mechanics of tumors and the microenvironment, specifically for glioblastoma, an incurable brain cancer. She had found in prior work that tumors damage the surrounding brain. But to understand the mechanisms by which tumors kill neurons from compression alone, Datta needed a “hardcore neuroscientist.”

That neuroscientist is , the John M. and Mary Jo Boler Assistant Professor in the at Notre Dame and co-lead author of the study. Patzke utilizes induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), which are either obtained from external sources or generated directly in . Unlike cells derived from fetal tissue, iPSCs are created by reprogramming a donor's blood or skin cells — often collected during a routine medical visit.

These cells function like embryonic stem cells and can be differentiated or changed in the lab into any cell type in the body, including neurons.

For this study, iPSCs were used to create neural cells and develop a model system of neurons and glial cells that behave as a neuronal network would in the brain. Researchers grew the cells and then applied pressure to the system to mimic the chronic compression of a glioblastoma tumor.

After compressing the cells, graduate students Maksym Zarodniuk and Anna Wenninger, from Datta and Patzke’s labs respectively, compared how many neurons and glial cells died versus lived.

“For the neurons that are still alive, many of them have this programmed self-destruction signaling activated,” Patzke said. “We wanted to understand which molecular pathway was responsible for this; is there a way to save neurons from going down the drain to this cell death mechanism?”

By sequencing and analyzing all messenger RNA from the living neuronal and glial cells, the researchers found an increase in HIF-1 molecules, signalling for stress adaptive genes to improve cell survival, which leads to inflammation in the brain. The compression also triggered AP-1 gene expression, a type of neuroinflammatory response.

Both neurological reactions are indicators that neuronal damage and death is underway.

An analysis of data from the shows that glioblastoma patients also reflect these compressive stress patterns and gene expression changes as well as synaptic dysfunction in line with the experiment’s results. The researchers confirmed these results by mimicking force via a live compression system applied to preclinical models of brains.

Overall, the findings may help explain why glioblastoma patients experience cognitive impairments, motor deficits and elevated seizure risk. Additionally, the signaling pathways offer opportunities for researchers to explore as drug targets to reduce neuronal death.

“Our approach to this study was disease agnostic, so our research could potentially extend to other brain pathologies that affect mechanical forces in the brain such as traumatic brain injury,” Datta said. “I’m all in on mechanics. Whatever it is that you’re interested in when it comes to cancer, above your question of interest, mechanics is sitting there and many don’t even know they should be considering it.”

The mechanics of compression and its effect on neuron loss is key for future research.

“Understanding why neurons are so vulnerable and die upon compression is critical to prevent excessive sensory loss, motor impairment and cognitive decline,” Patzke said. “This is how we will help patients.”

The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health and the (Harper) at Notre Dame. Additional funding and research support from Notre Dame was provided by the (Berthiaume), the , the , the and the . Both Datta and Patzke are affiliated with Notre Dame’s and the .

Datta is a concurrent faculty member in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and faculty advisor for Notre Dame’s graduate programs in and . She is affiliated with Harper, the , Berthiaume, and the .

Patzke is a faculty advisor for Notre Dame’s graduate programs in and as well as affiliated with the .

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

, associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, has been selected for the ’s , an initiative that brings emerging leaders into NASEM’s advisory work. Selected through a merit-based, open competition, Colón is one of just 20 early- and mid-career scientists, engineers and medical professionals nationwide chosen for the 2026-28 cohort.

Operating under an 1863 congressional charter to the National Academy of Sciences, signed by President Abraham Lincoln, the National Academies are private, nonprofit institutions that provide independent, objective analysis and advice to the nation to solve complex problems and inform public policy decisions related to science, engineering and medicine.

NASEM’s New Voices program was created to incorporate emerging experts into the National Academies’ efforts to address pressing global challenges. During his two-year term, which began Jan. 30, Colón will contribute to the Academies’ policy-relevant studies and convenings, develop interdisciplinary projects and collaborate with a national and international network of rising STEM leaders shaping the future of science and engineering.

“I’m honored to be selected for the New Voices program,” Colón said. “This opportunity allows researchers to help inform decisions on critical issues, and I hope to use my expertise in computational modeling and artificial intelligence to address issues in energy and sustainability. I also hope to promote global collaborations in science, as I believe these are necessary to address some of humanity’s most pressing issues.”

works at the intersection of the molecular sciences and artificial intelligence, focusing on the study, discovery and design of porous materials for targeted applications. Because fluids confined within microscopic pores exhibit complex, dynamic interactions, these materials offer opportunities to address challenges in water, energy and environmental sustainability. By developing computational and data-driven tools to predict how gases and liquids move, are stored and interact within these pores, his work accelerates the discovery of materials for applications including water harvesting and humidity control, efficient gas storage and separation, and ion transport.

His lab also develops efficient algorithms to understand how material structure influences performance, allowing researchers to quickly identify the most promising materials for real-world use without relying on costly calculations.

In 2022, Colón received a to develop a universal model that accurately predicts gas adsorption. The project has resulted in multiple publications showcasing how machine learning and artificial intelligence can be combined with molecular modeling of adsorption in porous materials. The project has also resulted in curricula around machine learning and artificial intelligence for middle and elementary schools.

After graduating from the University of Notre Dame with a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering in 2009, Colón spent a year at the University of Santiago de Compostela doing research with a Fulbright scholarship. He completed his doctorate at Northwestern University in 2015 and completed postdoctoral research at the University of Chicago and Argonne National Laboratory. Colón joined the Notre Dame faculty in 2018.

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

, the Coyle Professor of Literacy Education at the University of Notre Dame, died Wednesday (Feb. 4) after a long battle with cancer, surrounded by his wife and three sons. He was 54.

Morrell was a renowned literacy studies scholar who advocated for a radical reimagination of the relationship between students and texts. His work positioned literacy as a means of social justice, empowering young people to access information, exercise informed citizenship and participate fully in civic and cultural life. His scholarly interests also included critical pedagogy, postcolonial studies and global youth popular culture.

“On behalf of the entire Notre Dame community, we mourn the passing of Ernest Morrell, a beloved faculty colleague, dedicated administrator and cherished friend to many,” said University President “As a renowned scholar who made significant contributions to his discipline, a superb teacher who inspired and challenged his students, and a visionary administrator, he enriched the Notre Dame community and all who knew him.

“Ernest’s life reflected a deep integration of the life of the mind and matters of the heart. Our prayers are with his family, especially his wife, Jodene, and their three sons, Skip, Antonio and Tripp, and all who grieve his passing. We are grateful to God for Ernest’s life and presence among us, and his example will continue to inspire us.”

Father Dowd also announced that Morrell will posthumously receive the 2026 — which recognizes pioneering and visionary achievements in research, public impact, or creative endeavors that advance the University’s goals — in honor of his intellectually ambitious, socially consequential work centered on a humanistic vision of education.

At Notre Dame, Morrell was a faculty member of the and departments and the director of the Center for Literacy Education in the (IEI), and he served five years as the ’ associate dean for the humanities and faculty development.

Acclaim for Morrell’s work was widespread in academic circles. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, one of the nation’s oldest learned societies, in 2024, and he was also an elected member of the National Academy of Education and an elected fellow of the American Educational Research Association.

For the past decade, he has been included in the , an annual listing published by Education Week that highlights academics with the greatest impact on educational practice and policy. Last year, he , a prestigious honor from the National Council of Teachers of English given only 31 times since 1967, for his long-lasting impact on English language arts education.

“Ernest lived his vocation with extraordinary generosity and purpose,” said , the Hackett Family Director of IEI. “His scholarship, leadership and friendship shaped our institute in profound ways. He believed deeply in the power of education to transform lives, and he modeled that belief through his teaching, mentorship and unwavering commitment to the common good.”

Morrell came to Notre Dame in 2017 after faculty appointments at Columbia University’s Teachers College; the University of California, Los Angeles; and Michigan State University. Before pursuing his Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley, Morrell worked as a high school English teacher in Oakland, California, an experience that and shaped his lifelong commitment to supporting educators and students, particularly those historically underserved by educational systems.

Revered as a teacher and an adviser, Morrell approached mentorship as a collaborative partnership, frequently publishing with his doctoral students to help launch their careers before they even defended their dissertations.

“Ernest cultivated a true ‘family tree’ of scholars whose work began with his guidance,” said , a professor of the practice in Africana studies and education, schooling and society. “His former doctoral students are a testament to his efficacy as a mentor, as he allowed them to quickly become his peers, continuing the work of critical education studies and pedagogy at institutions across the country. They learned his lessons well about the importance of building and strengthening communities that support equity and justice.”

He is the author of more than 100 articles, research briefs and book chapters and he wrote or edited 17 scholarly books, including “Educating Harlem: A Century of 91��Ƶing and Resistance in a Black Community” (Columbia, 2019), “Stories from Inequity to Justice in Literacy Education: Confronting Digital Divides” (Routledge, 2021), “New Directions in Teaching English: Reimagining Teaching, Teacher Education and Research” (Rowman & Littlefield, 2015) and “Critical Media Pedagogy: Teaching for Achievement in City 91��Ƶs” (Teachers College Press, 2013), which was awarded Outstanding Academic Title by the American Library Association’s Choice magazine. His work has garnered more than 11,000 scholarly citations.

“Frederick Douglass said that ‘education means emancipation, it means life and liberty. … It means the uplifting of the soul to the glorious light of truth.’ I can think of no one whose life better reflected those words,” said , the John P. Murphy Foundation Professor of Law. “Ernest was a truly exceptional scholar and a tireless advocate for policies that would benefit kids most in need of the light of learning. But, more importantly, he was a beautiful soul. His deep faith and love for his family, his friends and colleagues and Our Lady’s University touched so many.”

Morrell is survived by his wife, , a teaching professor and associate director of the Center for Literacy Education, and their three sons, Skip, Antonio and Tripp.

A wake will be held from 4 to 8 p.m. Friday, Feb. 20, at Kaniewski Funeral Home, 3545 N. Bendix Drive, South Bend. A funeral Mass will be celebrated at 2:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 21, at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart on Notre Dame's campus, with Father Dowd presiding.

Condolences may be sent to the College of Arts & Letters Dean's Office, 100 O'Shaughnessy Hall, Notre Dame, IN 46556. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to literacy nonprofit .

“,” a colloquium celebrating Morrell’s scholarship, will be held April 7 at the UCLA James West Alumni Center in Los Angeles. The event’s title references a quote from Morrell’s latest book, “,” published last month with Nicole Mirra, Antero Garcia, Cati de los Ríos and Jamila Lyiscott

“We want to be engaged in revolutionary love and practice with beautiful and brilliant minds,” Morrell and his co-authors wrote, “that are in front of us to do something that is eternal.”

The University of Notre Dame has been awarded nearly $4 million in a four-year grant from the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) to fund a new initiative that will incorporate tools and strategies for teaching critical thinking into college classrooms around the country.

Supporting a project called Integrating Civil Discourse into the Curriculum at Public, Private, Community, and Historically Minority-Serving Colleges and Universities (ICDC), the grant comes out of the DOE’s Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education Special Projects Program, which focuses on, among other priorities, protecting and promoting civil discourse in higher education.

In support of that mission, ICDC brings together a team of faculty from universities and colleges around the country with nonprofit leaders to integrate two online technologies that teach critical thinking into undergraduate curricula.

“We’re going to ask this question, ‘Can we expand the reach of effective critical thinking strategies in ways that could impact how we dialogue with each other on a national scale?’” said , an assistant teaching professor in the and director of the . He and North Carolina State University professor Gary Comstock are leading ICDC as co-primary investigators.

Blaschko has been using ThinkArguments, one of ICDC’s two technological tools, for over three years to teach philosophical argumentation in the signature Notre Dame class . Produced by nonprofit ThinkerAnalytix, ThinkArguments is an online course with 10 lessons that train students in argument mapping, a method of informal reasoning that visualizes the structure of an argument. The course has thousands of LSAT-inspired practice questions targeting different critical thinking skills.

“Teaching is a core part of Notre Dame’s mission, so to have an institutional stake in education in this country on a broader scale can be one crucial way we live out that mission.”

Blaschko noticed the impact of ThinkArguments in his classes the first time he used it.

“The arguments students were offering — it just seemed like something was clicking that hadn’t been clicking before,” he said.

To quantify that change, Blaschko started measuring students’ critical thinking gains with pre- and post-tests. He recorded an average growth rate of 16% — a significant improvement. It was something he wanted to replicate.

That’s where ICDC comes in. The grant, administered by , will fund summer workshops that convene faculty from around the country to train them in the basics of ThinkArguments and how to effectively integrate the technology into their courses. They’ll also use the tool Sway, a chat platform produced by Florida nonprofit Disagree Wisely that uses artificial intelligence to coach students with differing perspectives through difficult discussions. The impact of incorporating those technologies into hundreds of classrooms will be measured in the same way Blaschko did it.

The project has the potential to break new ground in higher education. While critical thinking skills are often touted as a key outcome of a humanities education, Blascko said, actually teaching and assessing critical thinking competence is challenging, especially in larger classes. ICDC’s strategies confront this issue by narrowing in on a concrete set of skills that can be applied in any situation involving a search for truth.

“Students are gaining habits of mind that they can apply in reading comprehension, writing, and verbal argumentation and dialogue, both in the classroom and outside of it,” Blaschko said.

Blaschko and the other members of ICDC’s steering committee estimate the project will reach more than 100,000 students just within the grant’s lifetime, with an even greater impact beyond the next four years as their research advances critical thinking education in the U.S.

“It’s really meaningful to be working with the Department of Education on the front lines of pedagogy, research, and practice,” Blaschko said. “Teaching is a core part of Notre Dame’s mission, so to have an institutional stake in education in this country on a broader scale can be one crucial way we live out that mission.”

Originally published by Adah McMillan at on February 03, 2026.

Twenty-two Notre Dame students, including 18 undergraduate students and four graduate students, were awarded Fulbright Scholarships for the 2025-26 academic year, ranking 12th among U.S. doctoral institutions. 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 . “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.”

, a professor of biology and associate dean for professional development at the , 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 91��Ƶ’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.

For more information on this and other scholarship opportunities, visit (undergraduate students) or (graduate students).

The result of a highly competitive RFP process, the renewal extends a fruitful 10-year relationship that began in 2016, when Levy first began overseeing concessions and premium dining across the campus including at Notre Dame Stadium, Compton Family Ice Arena, and Purcell Pavilion at the Joyce Center. Under the new agreement, Levy will continue to manage all aspects of hospitality, including general concessions and premium seating, ensuring a seamless and high-quality experience for guests of the Fighting Irish.

“At Notre Dame, we strive for excellence in every aspect of our guest experience, and our hospitality program is no exception,” said , Notre Dame’s executive vice president. “Over the past decade, Levy has been more than just a service provider to the University. They are a true partner who understands our mission and shares our commitment to delivering world-class service.”

A hallmark of Levy’s trend-setting partnership with Notre Dame has been its industry-leading focus on sustainability and community support. Since 2017, the partnership has worked closely with the local nonprofit Cultivate Food Rescue to reduce food waste. By "rescuing" prepared but unserved food from the stadium, the program has provided thousands of nutritious meals to local food pantries and supported job-training programs for at-risk youth and adults in Northern Indiana. This initiative remains a cornerstone of the University’s broader sustainability strategy.

Moving forward, the partnership known for culinary innovation, enhanced service and community impact will place an even greater emphasis on local sourcing. Levy will continue to prioritize regional vendors and suppliers, bringing the authentic flavors of the South Bend-Elkhart region to the global stage of Notre Dame game days while supporting the local economy.

“The spirit and traditions of Notre Dame are cherished cornerstones of collegiate athletics, and it has been a profound honor to serve this community for the last 10 years,” said Andy Lansing, CEO of Levy. “Notre Dame marked our entry into the collegiate sports landscape and set our company on a decade-long path to national leadership in the hospitality field. Extending this partnership gives us the shared opportunity to further advance the guest experience while deepening our impact through local sourcing and world-class hospitality.”

Before the opening bell ever rings on a company’s initial public offerings, some of the executives may already be sitting on a quiet windfall.

An IPO can act as a source of “cheap money” because of how stock options are valued before a company goes public. In private firms, options are supposed to be issued “at the money,” with exercise prices reflecting the fair value of the shares at the time of the grant. But without a public market price, those valuations rely on models and judgment, giving companies wide discretion.

When the firm later goes public, the IPO establishes a market value that is often far higher than the earlier private valuation. Options that once appeared fairly priced can suddenly become deeply “in the money,” allowing executives to purchase shares at prices far below market value. The resulting gap functions as “cheap money” — a significant windfall created by the shift from private valuation to public markets, rather than by new performance.

This is a red flag for regulators. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission frequently flags cheap stock grants when it reviews registration statements when companies try to go public.

New research from the University of Notre Dame examines the prevalence, determinants and consequences of cheap stock.

“The average firm’s IPO price is more than five times the exercise price (price per share when stock options are exercised) of options issued in the fiscal year before the IPO,” said lead author , the Deloitte Foundation Department Chair of Accountancy and Deloitte Professor of Accountancy at Notre Dame’s . His findings in the paper titled “” are forthcoming in Management Science.

“We show that ‘cheap stock’ option grants are widespread and economically significant,” Badertscher said. “It isn’t just about high growth, lack of liquidity or IPO uncertainty. It’s actually driven by specific incentives — like backing from venture capitalists and how managers are compensated.”

The gap between the IPO price and the exercise price of recently granted options is greater for firms that grant more options, have larger public offerings and have venture capital backing.

Badertscher, with co-authors Bjorn Jorgensen from Copenhagen Business 91��Ƶ, Sharon Katz from INSEAD and Jeremy Michels from Purdue University, analyzed the prospectuses of 963 U.S. companies that went public between 2007 and 2022, pulling detailed information on pre-IPO stock option grants. The researchers’ main metric measured the gap between the IPO price and the average employee exercise price in the fiscal year immediately preceding the IPO.

They found that when a company gives out cheap stock options, it tends to signal trouble. It’s linked to overpaying the CEO, a disappointing IPO and less money being spent on growth — leading to poor long-term stock performance.

The paper states, “Entrenched CEOs, having received a financial windfall from the IPO, may prefer the status quo and may not be motivated to take risks that are in the best interest of shareholders.”

Companies with more monitoring — like top-tier venture capitalists and underwriters — often have more cheap stock right before going public. This suggests they are doing it to guarantee a successful IPO, not just because of poor corporate governance.

The study has implications for regulators, investors, boards and researchers.

It validates the SEC’s concern that handing out cheap stock before an IPO can make compensation expenses look way lower than they actually are, which distorts the financial picture, even absent clear evidence of fraud.

For investors and analysts, the research shows that looking at pre-IPO pay structures gives you a sneak peek into how well a company will perform and invest once it’s on the public market. For boards and compensation committees, it suggests that cheap stock can embed long-lasting incentive distortions that extend well beyond the IPO event.

“The paper also opens a new empirical window into private-firm valuation discretion, an area that is typically unobservable but economically important,” Badertscher said.

Contact: Brad Badertscher, 574-631-5197, bbaderts@nd.edu

In a published in the journal Science, University of Notre Dame researchers and argue that fossil fuel systems might be far more fragile than current energy models assume.

“Systems designed to be large and growing behave differently when they shrink,” said Grubert, associate professor of sustainable energy policy at Notre Dame’s and a faculty affiliate of the Keough 91��Ƶ’s “Ignoring this shift puts everything at risk, from the success of green energy to the basic safety and reliability of our power.”

The researchers introduced the concept of “minimum viable scale,” a threshold of production below which a fossil fuel system can no longer function safely or economically. They provided examples of vulnerabilities in three major sectors:

• Petroleum refineries: Most refineries are incapable of operating normally at low capacity and likely have “turndown limits,” or a minimum operational capacity, of roughly 65 to 70 percent. If gasoline demand drops sharply due to electric vehicle adoption, for example, a refinery might become incapable of providing other products such as jet fuel or asphalt.
• Natural gas pipelines: As customers switch to electric heating and cooling, those remaining on the gas grid will have to shoulder the fixed costs of maintaining miles of pipelines. This can create a “death spiral” where rising costs drive customers away.
• Coal generation: The authors highlighted a “managerial constraint” where the fate of coal mines and power plants is inextricably linked. A single plant closure can make a local mine unprofitable. Conversely, a mine closure can leave a power plant without its specific, geographically dependent fuel source, leading to a cascade of failures.

The researchers reported that the decline of fossil fuels is unlikely to follow the smooth, linear path often depicted in hypothetical decarbonization scenarios. Instead, they identified a series of physical, financial and managerial “cliffs” that could trigger localized energy crises, price shocks and safety threats long before fossil fuels are retired. Policymakers have focused intensely on the build-out of green energy while largely ignoring the managed decline of the current systems that still provide 80 percent of global energy — a critical oversight, they said.

“None of these systems were designed with their own obsolescence in mind,” said Lappen, a postdoctoral researcher at the Pulte Institute who studies how energy networks grow and shrink over time. “None of the engineers, founding executives, economists or accountants involved ever imagined a system that would gradually and safely hand off to another.”

The danger, according to the authors, is that these systems are “networks of networks.” If one piece fails — a pipeline, a specialized labor pool or a regulatory body — the entire regional energy support system could dissolve.

“If you are leaving decisions about things staying open or closing to individual operators who are not coordinated in any way, this can be incredibly dangerous,” Grubert said.

How to manage decline

To avoid disruption of services, the researchers argued that the current U.S. approach of bailouts and bankruptcies is inefficient. They recommended four key solutions for policymakers and energy modelers:

• High-resolution modeling: Energy modelers should develop tools that provide high-resolution representation of fossil fuel assets to identify when specific facilities reach their minimum viable scale.
• Coordination across ownership boundaries: Policymakers must establish management structures that coordinate decisions across ownership boundaries to prevent a single failure from triggering a cascade of collapses.
• Public management for public need: As systems become unprofitable, they may require significant new investments to remain safe and reliable in the short term, while still committing to closure. Such decisions should be managed by government entities.
• Guaranteed liabilities: Governments should create mechanisms to guarantee the payment of long-term liabilities — “bills” due at the end of a project such as safely tearing down power plants, cleaning up polluted soil or paying out pensions to workers — to ensure that declining systems are not simply abandoned by private operators.

Without such intervention, the authors warned, the “mid-transition” period to zero carbon energy could be defined by instability. If the decline is unmanaged, the resulting price spikes and reliability issues could undermine public trust in the energy transition itself, potentially stalling progress toward meeting important climate goals.

“We will be more creative and more successful if we think about the process outside the moment of crisis,” Grubert said. “Focusing more attention on the behavior of fossil systems under decline can help put timely solutions into place.”

Originally published by Renée LaReau at on Jan. 29.

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

The conversation began with Father Dowd introducing Graham, founder and managing principal of Graham Allen Partners, a private equity firm focused on investing in technology and tech-enabled businesses across the U.S, and Spruell, president of league operations for the National Basketball Association, as “two champions of hope who embody the spirit of Notre Dame.”

Graham and Spruell, both members of the University’s Board of Trustees, discussed with Father Dowd the serendipitous events that led them to Notre Dame, their career paths and mentors, their definitions of hope — and what they most value from their time as students at the University.

For Spruell, who was a member of the football team from 1984-87 and served as co-captain in 1987, the lessons he learned from Coach Holtz and the relationships he built with his teammates stood out.

“There’s a throughline of experience that I come back to: ‘Trust, love, commitment.’ Trust the people you work with. Make sure they love what they do. Make sure they're committed to excellence,” Spruell said. “It’s not just in the coaching relationships, but the brotherhood that is part of Notre Dame football, that Coach Lou Holtz embodied, that certainly Marcus (Freeman) is embodying now. Those are the types of things that are ingrained in me now. To be part of this special place, to live it each and every day and now to be able to give back through being on the Board (of Trustees) and other things is just an honor.”

Graham, a member of the Fighting Irish football team from 1992-95, said that among a host of other things he learned at Notre Dame, he was most inspired by the University’s mission to be a force for good in the world.

“What Notre Dame did for me was it really got me focused on building something more important than myself,” he said. “It fundamentally changed me from a kid who walked through life trying to figure out how I could do something for me to this mission-driven focus about how I could do something for others.

“The biggest gift that Notre Dame has given me is this drive to help others and to be a part of others’ lives and this understanding that that is the way that you get the best and most fulfillment.”

Following the conversation, Graham and Spruell also answered questions from the audience, reflecting on how they make tough decisions, how they balance purpose and profit in the business world and how to foster connection in a divided society.

Watch the full conversation here:

The study, published in , provides a tool to quantify responsibility for PM 2.5 pollution, a type of fine particulate matter. It comes amid renewed debate over pollution regulations in the United States. In January, the Environmental Protection Agency said it will stop calculating the  — including lives saved and health care costs avoided — from air pollution rules targeting ozone and PM 2.5.

The research was co-authored by , assistant professor in the and , assistant professor of environment, peace and global affairs in the , along with , a doctoral student in the .

“Our analysis gives states an evidence-based way to demonstrate when cross-state pollution exceeds safe thresholds and threatens public health,” Marcantonio said. “Rather than relying solely on an economic evaluation, policymakers can use clear data on health risks to guide decisions that protect vulnerable residents and communities.”

The new study translates the concept of an airshed — a geographical area where air moves together as a single unit, similar to hydrology’s concept of a watershed — into a practical framework that regulators around the world can use.

“Our study introduces a simpler, data-driven framework that policymakers and regulators can readily adapt,” Crippa said. “This is an important improvement upon previous studies, which have had limited scalability and adaptability.”

Findings underscore pollution’s unequal impact

The study highlights the inequality of pollution in the United States. Researchers found that:

• The percentage of premature deaths attributed to cross-state PM 2.5 pollution has remained constant at approximately 40 percent since 1998, even though air pollution has fallen by 35 percent in the same time period.

• More than half of U.S. states are net exporters of air pollution; roughly a third are net zero contributors, meaning they are neither importers nor exporters; and the remainder, less than a fifth, are net importers.

• Florida stands out as the largest exporter of cross-state pollution (affecting Georgia and the Carolinas), followed by Vermont and Iowa.

• Exporters include a number of states across the Upper Midwest, the Mid-Atlantic and the Southeast — including Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia, Virginia, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama and South Carolina — as well as California, Oregon and Washington on the West Coast.

Instead of relying primarily on complex chemical transport models, the authors drew on the concept of an airshed to design a simpler, data-driven approach. They highlighted concentrations of PM 2.5 that exceed established safety thresholds and mapped how these particulates, pushed by prevailing winds, cross state lines, harming communities in which they did not originate.

The research builds upon, which has documented that major air polluters are more likely to be located near a state’s downwind borders than other types of polluters. This dynamic allows states to economically benefit from industry while avoiding the health issues that come with it.

“Our findings underscore the unequal distribution of both health risk and responsibility across state lines,” Marcantonio said.

Informing policy to address pollution

Crippa and Marcantonio want their work to inform policy both in the United States, where legal challenges are the main barriers to regulation, and in other global contexts, where a lack of resources is the main barrier.

“Ultimately, we want to provide an evidence-based approach to protecting public health and supporting human dignity,” Marcantonio said.

In the United States, air pollution regulation faces legal and political challenges. Traditionally, it has been decentralized and the Clean Air Act’s “Good Neighbor” provision has been the strongest regulatory tool. In 2024, the Supreme Court paused an updated Environmental Protection Agency plan aimed at strengthening that provision and addressing shortcomings in state plans.

In lower-resource contexts outside the United States, regulators often have limited access to complex, resource-intensive air quality models. But they face a similar public health problem: pollution that crosses political boundaries and harms other communities.

Whether the regulatory challenges are legal or technological, Crippa and Marcantonio said their work can provide a more timely and complete picture of pollution’s impact, furnishing policymakers with data that can help them protect vulnerable downwind communities.

The researchers are extending their work globally through a multi-year project co-led with Danielle Wood, director of the , focused on how pollution that originates in mega-cities affects other communities.

Funding for that work and the cross-state study was provided through a additional support for the cross-state research came from Notre Dame’s and the .

This work aligns with Notre Dame’s , a University-wide effort to build a sustainable future where people and nature flourish together.

“Our research can inform policy and help regulators prioritize permitting, monitoring and enforcement activities,” Marcantonio said. “Ultimately, we want to provide an evidence-based approach to protecting public health and supporting human dignity.”

Crippa is the principal investigator for the , part of Notre Dame’s , and Liao is also affiliated with the group. Marcantonio is affiliated with the and the in Notre Dame’s ; with the and; and with the Keough 91��Ƶ’s and .

Originally published by Josh Stowe at on Jan. 28.

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

In honor of his lifelong dedication to and outstanding achievements in traditional urbanism and architecture, John Simpson has been selected as the 2026 laureate of the Richard H. Driehaus Prize at the University of Notre Dame. He will receive the prize during a ceremony on March 21 at the Murphy Auditorium in Chicago.

A native of the United Kingdom, Simpson first gained prominence in 1990 during the Paternoster Square development competition in London where he advocated for New Traditional Architecture and Urbanism. The Driehaus Prize citation notes that “his inspiring leadership in gathering a distinguished group of his peers to address what was then a major civic challenge was clearly noticed.”

While the project was eventually realized with a different vision, Simpson’s proposal “highlighted an emerging, new and constructive approach to urban regeneration and cemented his influence as one of the earliest proponents of modern classicism,” the citation states.

“Our ancestors built wonderful and enduring cities through a shared tradition,” Simpson said. “When I began my career, there were only a few that held to that path. It is such a joy to see how this has changed over the years with a rising generation of architects committed to restoring the continuity that binds us to our Classical roots and determined to create a beautiful and humane world for future generations to enjoy. This award recognizes the enduring value of tradition, not as nostalgia, but as a foundation for building well and responsibly today.”

Simpson’s work has been extensive and deeply influential, the prize jury wrote. It has unfolded through private, public and institutional commissions, “each executed with a keen eye for a balance between precedent based composition, place-appropriate siting and a focus on durability of construction.”

“While thoughtfully contextual with respect to local character and scale, his work also stands as a testament to the multiple building cultures that make up all traditions and offers solutions to the critical need for variety and uniqueness of place facing the built environment,” the citation continued. “Chief among his projects deserving praise are the King’s Gallery at Buckingham Palace, his many projects at Poundbury for the Duchy of Cornwall, the DMRC Rehabilitation Facility at Stanford Hall, the Royal College of Music in London, the 91��Ƶ of Architecture at the University of Notre Dame and his educational projects at Eton, Oxford and Cambridge.”

The jury also recognized Simpson’s long interest in teaching, both informally through his practice and often didactic architecture and through formal teaching positions at the Prince’s Foundation, the University of Buckingham and, most recently, at Cambridge University at the Center for the Study of Classical Architecture. Simpson is also a fellow at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge.

“John Simpson has long maintained that traditional forms are environmentally sound and contribute to the sense of local identity. His work amply illustrates that the practice of traditional urbanism and architecture does indeed facilitate the bonds of community by encouraging people of all kinds to share a common, living culture of building and to avail themselves of the opportunity to identify with, live and flourish in its distinctive presence,” said , Driehaus Prize jury chair and the Francis and Kathleen Rooney Dean of the 91��Ƶ of Architecture.

In conjunction with the Driehaus Prize, the 2026 Henry Hope Reed Award will be given to Philippe Villeneuve, a French architect specializing in historic monument conservation and restoration. Villeneuve was selected for his visionary leadership in the restoration of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris after a 2018 fire.

Villeneuve, who studied architecture at the École d’Architecture de Paris-Conflans, obtained his governmental architectural diploma in 1989 and later a diploma from the École de Chaillot. In 1997, he passed the “Thèse de Concours” to become chief architect for historical monuments in France. He has worked on restoration projects including the Angoulême Cathedral , the chevet and north portal of Limoges Cathedral and the Hôtel de Ville in La Rochelle.

“Villeneuve’s crowning achievement has been in bringing the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris from the brink of collapse to its rightful place as the most significant building in France and one of the most recognizable in the world,” Polyzoides said. “Thanks to Villeneuve, the iconic cathedral — an edifice expressing the spiritual essence, technical prowess and proud identity of the French nation across the centuries — was reconstructed in accordance with its original 12th century form.”

Villeneuve engaged hundreds of architects, engineers, designers and craftspeople from across France and looked to the original sources of materials to rebuild the structure. His expansive team combined traditional and cutting-edge construction techniques in tandem to execute the reconstruction in record time.

The jury cited Villeneuve’s leadership in advocating that Notre-Dame de Paris be rebuilt in its original construction methods and returned to its original form.

“Challenging the preservation protocols in place and the high-tech visions of popular architects, Villeneuve argued instead that historic buildings possess physical integrity, community values and symbolic meaning. He had the courage to take his case to French President Emmanuel Macron to explain his viewpoints, thereby convincing the president despite strong opposition,” the jury citation reads.

This year’s Driehaus Prize and Henry Hope Reed laureates were selected by a jury composed of Ben Bolgar, executive director of the Kings Foundation, London; Melissa DelVecchio, partner at Robert A.M. Stern Architects, New York; Michael Lykoudis, professor emeritus of architecture at the University of Notre Dame; Demetri Porphyrios, founding principal of Porphyrios Associates, London; and Julia Treese, partner at Treese Architekten, Berlin and Munich. Polyzoides, also a partner at Moule & Polyzoides, Architects and Urbanists, Pasadena, California, served as jury chair.

The $200,000 Driehaus Prize is the largest cash award given in architecture worldwide. It is granted to architects by the Driehaus Trust, in the name of Richard H. Driehaus, founder and chairman of Chicago-based Driehaus Capital Management LLC, for their excellence in the design of New Traditional Architecture and Urbanism over their entire career. The Henry Hope Reed Award of $50,000 is similarly granted to individuals who have contributed to the design and building culture that cultivates the traditional city, its architecture and art through writing, planning or promotion.

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

While this approach has yielded major advances, it has left unresolved one of the most basic facts about human cognition: its overall unity as an integrated system.

Now, researchers at the University of Notre Dame have conducted a neuroimaging study to investigate how the brain is organized and how that integrated system gives rise to intelligence.

“Neuroscience has been very successful at explaining what particular networks do, but much less successful at explaining how a single, coherent mind emerges from their interaction,” said , the Andrew J. McKenna Family Professor of Psychology in Notre Dame’s .

How cognitive ties form ‘general intelligence’

Psychologists have long known that areas as diverse as attention, perception, memory and language are correlated, forming what they term “general intelligence.” This accounts for how humans function and adapt in a wide range of academic, professional, social and health contexts. It shapes how efficiently we learn, reason and perform in response to a multitude of everyday problems and tasks.

For more than a century, this structure has suggested that cognition is unified at a fundamental level. What has been missing is a theory to explain why such unity exists.

“The problem of intelligence is not one of functional localization,” said Barbey, who is also the director of the Notre Dame Human Neuroimaging Center and the . “Contemporary research often asks where general intelligence originates in the brain — focusing primarily on a specific network of regions within the frontal and parietal cortex. But the more fundamental question is how intelligence emerges from the principles that govern global brain function — how distributed networks communicate and collectively process information.”

Barbey and his research team, including Notre Dame graduate student and lead author , investigated the predictions of the unifying framework, called the Network Neuroscience Theory. was recently published in the journal Nature Communications.

The Network Neuroscience Theory

General intelligence is not itself a skill or strategy, the researchers argued. It is a pattern — the tendency for diverse abilities to be positively correlated. The study argues that this pattern reflects differences in how efficiently brain networks are organized and work together.

To test this claim, the cognitive neuroscientists analyzed brain imaging and cognitive data from one of the largest studies conducted to date, examining 831 adults in the , along with an independent sample of 145 adults in the INSIGHT Study, which was funded by the . The researchers integrated measures of both brain structure and function to enable a more precise characterization of the human brain.

Rather than identifying intelligence with a particular cognitive function or brain network, the Network Neuroscience Theory characterizes it as a property of how the brain works as a whole. In this view, intelligence reflects how brain networks are coordinated and dynamically reconfigured to solve the diverse problems we encounter in life.

This research represents an important shift, according to Barbey and Wilcox.

“We found evidence for system-wide coordination in the brain that is both robust and adaptable,” Wilcox said. “This coordination does not carry out cognition itself, but determines the range of cognitive operations the system can support.”

“Within this framework, the brain is modeled as a network whose behavior is constrained by global properties such as efficiency, flexibility and integration,” Wilcox said. “These properties are not tied to individual tasks or brain networks, but are characteristics of the system as a whole, shaping every cognitive operation without being reducible to any one of them.”

“Once the question shifts from where intelligence is to how the system is organized,” Wilcox noted, “the empirical targets change.”

Intelligence as a globally coordinated system of networks

The researchers found evidence to support four predictions of the Network Neuroscience Theory.

First, the theory predicts that intelligence is not localized to a single brain network but arises from processing distributed across multiple networks. Intelligence, therefore, depends on how the brain manages the division of labor across different networks and combines them as needed.

Second, for the brain to manage this distributed processing, it requires integration and effective long-range communications. To synchronize those efforts, Barbey said, there is “a large and complex system of connections that serve as ‘shortcuts’ linking distant brain regions and integrating information across the networks.” These pathways connect structurally distant areas of the brain, enabling efficient communication and supporting coordinated processing across the system.

Third, effective integration requires regulatory control that coordinates interactions among networks by shaping how information flows throughout the brain. These areas serve as regulatory hubs, reaching out to other networks to orchestrate the brain’s ongoing activities. They selectively recruit the appropriate networks for the specific task at hand — whether it be piecing together subtle clues to make sense of a problem, learning a new skill or deciding whether a situation requires careful deliberation or a rapid, intuitive response.

Finally, Barbey said that general intelligence depends on the brain’s ability to balance local specialization with global integration. In other words, the brain functions best when tightly connected local clusters communicate well, but are still able to link to distant regions of the brain across short communication paths. This makes the most effective problem-solving possible, according to the co-authors.

The research suggests that intelligence is unified not because the brain relies on a single general-purpose processor, but because the same organizational principles shape how all cognitive functions work together.

Across both datasets, individual differences in general intelligence were consistently associated with these system-level properties. No single region or canonical “intelligence network” accounted for the effect.

“General intelligence becomes visible when cognition is coordinated,” Barbey noted, “when many processes must work together under system-level constraints.”

Applications for artificial intelligence

The implications of this study extend beyond intelligence research, he added. By grounding cognition in large-scale organization, the study offers a principled account of why the mind is unified at all.

This framework helps explain why intelligence develops broadly during childhood, declines with aging and is particularly sensitive to diffuse brain injury. In each case, it is large-scale coordination — not isolated function — that changes.

The findings also inform ongoing debates about artificial intelligence and how AI models are developed. If general intelligence in humans arises from system-level organization rather than from a dedicated general-purpose mechanism, then achieving general intelligence in artificial systems may require more than the accumulation or scaling of specialized capabilities.

“This research can push us into thinking about how to use design characteristics of the human brain to motivate advances in human-centered, biologically inspired artificial intelligence,” Barbey said.

“Many AI systems can perform specific tasks very well, but they still struggle to apply what they know across different situations.” Barbey said. “Human intelligence is defined by this flexibility — and it reflects the unique organization of the human brain.”

The research was conducted with co-authors Babak Hemmatian and Lav Varshney of Stony Brook University.

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

The University of Notre Dame’s (LEO) is working with Catholic Charities Fort Worth (CCFW) and Goodwill Industries of Michiana to replicate CCFW’s Padua program in the Michiana region — marking the first-ever Padua mission site in the nation.

Goodwill Michiana’s launch is a major step in a broader effort to expand evidence-based poverty-reduction models to more communities. Through its partnership with Franchise for Good, LEO is applying franchising principles to help evidence-backed programs like Padua expand while protecting what makes them work.

Created by CCFW and named after St. Anthony of Padua — the patron saint of the poor — Padua aims to move clients permanently out of poverty by providing them with intensive, wrap-around case management services. The Padua program uses a client-led, long-term and research-driven approach to redefine traditional case management.

The program was rigorously evaluated by LEO to test the impact of Padua on labor market and other outcomes. Using a randomized controlled trial, a group of more than 400 program participants, only 40 percent of whom were employed upon enrollment and whose income placed them at about two-thirds of the federal poverty line.

LEO researchers found that through the Padua program, participants were 25 percent more likely to achieve full-time employment — while also reporting significant improvements in overall health and well-being. The intervention was particularly effective for those not employed at enrollment. For this group, the intervention led to a 67 percent increase in the probability of working full-time and a 46 percent increase in monthly earnings. Those who lacked stable housing before enrollment were 64 percent more likely to secure stable housing.

In the years since the study, LEO has worked alongside Catholic Charities Fort Worth to translate those findings into a model that can be replicated with integrity. That work focuses on identifying the program’s core components and supporting partners to implement them with fidelity as Padua expands to new communities.

"Padua shows what’s possible when evidence, dignity and partnership come together,” said , LEO co-founder and director. “We have evidence this program works, and replicating it through trusted partners like Goodwill Michiana is how that evidence can improve lives far beyond where it began.”

Bringing Padua to Michigan and Indiana represents a significant expansion of Padua’s research-backed, holistic approach to ending poverty, extending its reach beyond North Texas to empower more families on their path to lasting stability. The launch of the Padua mission site in Michiana underscores a shared commitment to advance proven, compassionate solutions that empower individuals and families to achieve more for their futures.

“Padua was built with a vision to meet people where they are — a client-led program that honors human dignity, builds emotional resilience and delivers real results,” said Brendan Perry, director of Padua National at . “Taking this research-backed model beyond Fort Worth for the first time marks a major step in our mission.”

, a respected leader in workforce development and community services, will be the first organization in the nation to replicate the Padua model — bringing its people-first approach and strong community infrastructure to families across the region.

“We are excited to launch the nation’s first Padua mission site right here in our region,” said Debie Coble, president and CEO of Goodwill Industries of Michiana. “This partnership empowers families with personalized support so they can build lasting stability and independence, and truly achieve their most abundant lives.”

Padua pairs each client with a dedicated two-person navigator team who provides personalized, judgment-free support in areas such as housing, employment, education and health. Unlike traditional programs, Padua has no time limits — navigators walk alongside clients for as long as it takes to reach stability and independence.

With a case management staff that works to meet every individual where they are, clients are equipped to tackle both personal and financial challenges, learning how to manage resources, set boundaries and maintain accountability. They are empowered to use the skills and tools they learn to change their trajectories and make their way to a better future.

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

A 2025 Goldwater Scholar, Finley is an honors track physics-in-medicine major from Kentucky with research and clinical interests in radiation oncology — an orientation shaped by witnessing family members and hospice patients undergo cancer treatments.

He will pursue a Master of Philosophy degree in pathology next year at the University of Cambridge, where he will conduct research under the tutelage of David Fernandez-Antoran in the 91��Ƶ of the Biological Sciences.

“I feel both blessed and humbled to be selected as a Churchill Scholar — an opportunity through which I intend to carry forward Notre Dame’s commitment to being a ‘force for good’ by advancing cancer treatments for patients who need them,” Finley said.

Active in research, Finley is an assistant to , professor of physics and astronomy, in the , where he contributes to research related to various aspects of radiation. He is also a junior scholar-in-training with the Radiation Research Society.

He previously worked as a CPRIT CURE fellow under Steven Lin, professor of radiation oncology, at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston and as an Amgen Fellow under Todd Aguilera, assistant professor of radiation oncology, at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas-Fort Worth.

Around campus, he is an associate news editor for , the undergraduate journal for scientific research for the College of Science; president of the Quiz Bowl Club; a member of the College of Science Council and the College of Science Honor Code Committee; and a resident assistant at Morrissey Hall.

“Beyond his impressive accomplishments, (Finley) actively stimulates and motivates our scientifically grounded discussions that often extend to broader aspects of college life, continually pushing me to be a better professor. Working with him has been both a privilege and an inspiration.”

In his free time, he volunteers for Heartland Hospice and Saint Joseph Mishawaka Medical Center. He has completed extensive medical shadowing across various specialties, experiences that further affirmed his desire to aid those afflicted with cancer.

“Receiving this scholarship would not be possible without the loving support of my family and the invaluable tutelage of my professors and research mentors,” Finley said. “I am especially grateful to Sylwia Ptasinska, , Steven H. Lin and Todd Aguilera for stoking my love of science while equipping me with the skills necessary to initiate real change.”

He also thanked Emily Buika Hunt with the (CUSE) at Notre Dame “for her assistance with navigating my future goals and with applying for the Goldwater and Churchill scholarships.”

“It has been a pleasure working with Jacob over the past two years as he applied for the Goldwater Scholarship and the Churchill Scholarship,” said Buika Hunt, assistant director of scholarly development at CUSE. “His dedication to research and improving the experience of those undergoing cancer treatments is evident.”

She continued, “Conducting a year of research with Dr. David Fernandez-Antoran at Cambridge University prior to pursuing an M.D./Ph.D. is an unparalleled opportunity to expand on the research training he has received at Notre Dame. I look forward to following his career and witnessing the positive impact his research will have on countless lives.”

Ptasinska expressed pride in “Jacob’s achievement in receiving such a prestigious scholarship,” calling him “an exceptionally capable young individual with remarkable intellectual ability and a strong work ethic.”

“He is a distinguished student with multifaceted capabilities and a strong foundation in the core sciences, consistently demonstrating outstanding dedication and academic excellence,” Ptasinska said. “Beyond his impressive accomplishments, he actively stimulates and motivates our scientifically grounded discussions that often extend to broader aspects of college life, continually pushing me to be a better professor. Working with him has been both a privilege and an inspiration.”

Established in 1963, the Churchill Scholarship fulfills its namesake’s vision of deepening the U.S.-U.K. partnership while advancing science and technology on both sides of the Atlantic. It encompasses 18 scholarships — 16 Churchill Scholarships in science, math and engineering and two Kanders Churchill Scholarships in science policy.

The award covers tuition, roundtrip airfare to the United Kingdom, visa fees and health surcharge, plus a stipend exceeding the UK Research Council standard. Recipients can also apply for a $4,000 special research grant.

It is considered one of the most prestigious and competitive international fellowships available to American graduate students, alongside the Marshall, Rhodes, Gates Cambridge, Fulbright and Mitchell scholarships. Eight Churchill Scholars have gone on to win the Nobel Prize.

For more on this and other scholarship opportunities, visit .

In recent years, Nepal has been heralded as a global leader in community-based forest conservation. By handing over nearly a third of its nationally owned forest to local villagers in the 1980s, the country reversed years of deforestation and effectively between 1992 and 2016. For many in rural Nepal, these forests are a lifeline, providing essential subsistence resources such as firewood for cooking and fodder for livestock.

But from the University of Notre Dame suggests these environmental successes may exclude Nepal’s most vulnerable groups from their accompanying economic benefits. The National Science Foundation-funded study, published in Nature Sustainability, analyzed data from more than 500,000 households to reveal that while the program has reduced overall rural poverty, it also widened the gap between the country’s social elite and its marginalized populations. Researchers found that the benefits of forest decentralization — ranging from timber sales to microloans — flowed disproportionately to dominant ethnic and caste groups.

“When we hear the success stories, it’s remarkable what Nepal has achieved,” said study co-author Notre Dame Professor of Sustainable Development in the University’s . “At the same time, the program doesn’t always impact everyone equally and can leave some of the poorest households behind.”

Among the study’s several co-authors are on-the-ground collaborators from ForestAction Nepal and the Southasia Institute of Advanced 91��Ƶ. The study focuses on the country’s local government-supported forest management groups, which oversee the forests, collect fees and reinvest profits into their communities.

The 'gatekeeper' effect

Nepal’s community forestry program was built with equity in mind. Government guidelines mandate that marginalized groups be represented on executive committees and that 35 percent of forest income be allocated to poverty alleviation programs.

Yet the data reveals a different reality. The researchers found that while the program reduced poverty among historically advantaged groups such as the Brahmin, Chhetri and Newar, the impact on marginalized Dalit or Janajati households was significantly smaller or, in some cases, barely noticeable.

“Caste membership is closely correlated with education, income and economic indicators,” Andersson said. “The ones who gained the most were those in high-caste groups. Lower-caste groups weren’t negatively affected — nobody became worse off — but they were left behind.”

The study points to a “gatekeeper” effect: Members of dominant social groups are often better equipped to navigate the bureaucratic hurdles of forest management.

“If you are richer and have more education, you are more likely to have contacts when it comes to the commercialization of products, for example,” Andersson said. “People who know how to navigate the system will see opportunities when those changes come. They don’t necessarily exploit, but they take advantage, and that increases the gap.”

A growing divide

The research comes at a pivotal moment. Since the study’s primary data was collected, Nepal has and many rural villagers have moved away from forest-dependent livelihoods due to international migration.

Despite these shifts, the problem of “elite capture” — where local leaders monopolize resources — remains a persistent challenge. In areas with the forest program, this wealth gap was about 15 percent larger than in areas that did not have the program at all.

The researchers noted that while the program does not necessarily make marginalized populations worse off, it enriches advantaged groups at a much faster rate, creating a local increase in rural inequality. Andersson compared the policy shift to an “external shock.”

“Similar to when a natural disaster occurs, these kinds of changes tend to widen the gap between those with education and resources and those without those things,” he said.

Reimagining forest conservation

These findings are likely to be of interest to countries beyond Nepal, co-author Nathan Cook said, since community-based natural resource management is a cornerstone of global sustainability efforts.

“The solution is not to abandon decentralization, but to reform it,” said Cook, assistant professor in the Paul H. O’Neill 91��Ƶ of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University Indianapolis. In the study’s conclusion, the researchers suggested that stricter monitoring of equity provisions and the introduction of targeted payment schemes could help level the playing field.

As Nepal moves toward the commercialization of its forests through newer programs, the risk of excluding poor populations may grow, the researchers said. High-value timber production often prioritizes the needs of the wealthy over subsistence needs — such as firewood or livestock fodder — that marginalized groups rely on for survival.

For the international community, which has funneled millions into Nepal’s forestry model, the study serves as a sobering reminder, Andersson said.

“A forest can be thriving even as community members managing it are not benefiting from it equally,” he said. “But there’s still potential for programs like Nepal’s to be improved so they alleviate poverty and inequality. Future research and policy work should focus on this goal.”

Originally published by Renée LaReau at on Jan. 20.

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

Through the department’s initiative, New Horizons: Educating and Forming Tomorrow’s Catholic Leaders, led by , an associate professor of theology, Notre Dame seeks to establish a sustainable, collaborative effort to mentor and support emerging Catholic leaders. Over the next five years, the program plans to support 24 students entering the and 20 entering the , as well as guiding 100 other individuals through the church leadership discernment process.

In doing so, the program aims to enhance support structures, provide clearer pathways for study and alleviate financial barriers, particularly for promising leaders in underserved communities and mission dioceses. Program leaders hope that this new model will create an opportunity to reshape ministry formation at Notre Dame well beyond the five-year funding period.

“This grant connects Notre Dame’s world-class Department of Theology with leading partners where the Catholic Church is growing and in need of well-formed, dynamic Church leaders,” Grove said. “Together, we will work to recruit, form, educate, support and place these future ministers. We are exceptionally grateful to the Lilly Endowment for providing us the chance to reimagine how lay church leaders are raised up, formed and placed.”

The New Horizons program plans to target highly committed young adult leaders embedded in communities that represent potential future growth for the Church, including through outreach partnerships with the ; the (FOCUS); , a nonprofit focused on engagement with Latino Catholic young adults; and the dioceses and programs served by Notre Dame's . It will then provide cohort-based discernment opportunities in which participants experience Notre Dame’s M.A. and M.Div. programs as they consider pursuing graduate studies.

New Horizons will provide full tuition support for M.A. students and stipends for M.Div. students, making these programs affordable and accessible, then help participants develop robust networks to facilitate post-graduation job placements.

In addition to Grove, the New Horizons leadership team includes , teaching professor of theology and director of the M.A. program; , assistant teaching professor and associate director of the program; and , teaching professor and assistant chair for graduate studies.

The New Horizons program is being funded through Lilly Endowment’s Pathways for Tomorrow Initiative. Launched in 2021, it has provided grants totaling more than $700 million to support theological schools across the United States and Canada as they respond to the most pressing challenges they face while preparing pastoral leaders. The grant to Notre Dame is one of 45 that was approved in this competitive round of funding.

Notre Dame previously received a $7.9 million grant through Pathways for Tomorrow in support of , a partnership with Boston College that includes 16 other Catholic institutions in efforts to identify and form the next generation of pastoral leaders to serve U.S. Catholics, while rooted in the Latino experience.

Lilly Endowment Inc. is a private foundation created in 1937 by J.K. Lilly Sr. and his sons Eli and J.K. Jr. through gifts of stock in their pharmaceutical business, Eli Lilly and Company. While those gifts remain the financial bedrock of the Endowment, it is a separate entity from the company, with a distinct governing board, staff and location. In keeping with the founders’ wishes, the Endowment supports the causes of community development, education and religion and maintains a special commitment to its hometown, Indianapolis, and home state, Indiana. A principal aim of the Endowment’s religion grantmaking is to deepen and enrich the lives of Christians in the United States, primarily by seeking out and supporting efforts that enhance the vitality of congregations and strengthen the pastoral and lay leadership of Christian communities. The Endowment also seeks to improve public understanding of diverse religious traditions by supporting fair and accurate portrayals of the role religion plays in the United States and across the globe.

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