Past Graduate Justice Fellows

Andrei Badilla Aguilar

Andrei (he/him) is an engineer and a microbiologist by training from Costa Rica. He worked at the Costa Rican Water and Sewage Authority, overseeing water quality on beaches, investigating waterborne outbreaks, and tracking COVID-19 through wastewater. He is now pursuing a PhD in Environmental Engineering at Notre Dame, focusing on microbiology, the environment, and public health. In his free time, Andrei enjoys birdwatching, wildlife photography, brewing specialty coffee, and exercising.

Research

I conduct research at the Bibby Lab, investigating the spread of Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) in flowing waters. In 2019, over 1.2 million people succumbed to infections caused by drug-resistant bacteria. However, AMR not only impacts human health but also affects veterinary settings and the environment. Farm animal manure, which is commonly used as fertilizer, is widely recognized as a source of resistance to the nearby environments. This practice particularly contributes to the spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria to flowing waters through runoff or direct pollution. I use molecular analyses and modeling techniques to study how manure-borne genes associated with resistance in bacteria are transported in flowing waters. Understanding the fate and transport will alleviate the burden of antibiotic resistance and ensure a cleaner environment for everyone.

Clare Bath

Clare Bath is second-year doctoral student in the Sociology Department. She holds a BA in Political Science and History from Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota (2021) and a MA in Peace and Justice from the University of San Diego (2023).

Clare compares tactics used by civil society organizations to affect change in unrecognized countries, also called defacto states. She is especially interested in how institutions challenge, maintain, or overcome national, geopolitical, and/or international hegemonies.

Research

Numerous countries in the world today, such as Somaliland, Kurdistan, and Taiwan, lack international recognition. Their governments operate with a high degree of autonomy; their territories have been stabilized for many years; and each possesses a strong national identity. However, the refusal of most international organizations (such as the UN) and powerful states (such as the US) to recognize these states constrains the capacity of their governments to participate fully in international governance. Yet, this phenomenon not only impacts the way that such governments operate, but also their civil societies. I traveled to Hargeisa, Somaliland, to conduct interviews and participatory ethnography to answer the question: how do NGOs adapt to, and resist, the constraints placed on development resulting from their host country’s unrecognized status?

Noemi Fernandez Labarga

Noemi is a PhD candidate in Notre Dame’s English Department whose work examines the intersection between infrastructural justice and the literature of the Americas. When not dissertating, she is a managing editor for the peer-reviewed journal Religion and Literature, and she volunteers for the Moreau College Initiative at Westville Men’s Correctional Facility.

Research

My dissertation, currently titled “Nuclear Transmutations and Quantum Observations in American Speculative Literature,” shows how speculative literatures of the twentieth- and twenty-first centuries expose seemingly invisible regimes of infrastructural violence that escalated during and after the nuclear arms race around the time of the Second World War. From uranium mining and plutonium processing to nuclear testing and waste storage/dumping, nuclear infrastructures are variegated and multitudinous, impacting every aspect of human and nonhuman life. Those who are disproportionally affected by what I call “nuclear coloniality,” however, are racialized populations with ever-present legacies of colonial history. While those of us who operate from a site of privilege may not be able to see clearly through the murky surface of the nuclear complex, writers from affected communities are all too familiar with the consequences of an ever-present militarized society.

Katie Heatherly

Katie Heatherly is a second-year Ph.D. student at the University of Notre Dame where she studies the intersection of religion and gender and sexuality in 20th-century US. Heatherly received her M.A. in History from Baylor University and her B.A. in History from Union University. She is originally from Asheville, NC and outside of academia, Heatherly enjoys hiking, coffee, and exploring new places.

Research

I study twentieth-century evangelical women, gender, and sexuality. My research centers evangelical sex advice and purity culture and explores questions of positionality, authority, agency, and navigation of patriarchy. My historical inquiries shed light on the various paths evangelical women chose amid constraints and illuminate the ways evangelicals’ positionality, primarily their gender and race, shaped the sexual ethic they advanced.

Grace Kemgang

Grace Kemgang is a second-year in the Law School.

Research

As a first-generation immigrant, I am most fascinated by pursuits that intersect culture, justice, and humanity. In my undergraduate institution, I studied what ignites global social conflicts. I found that sociopolitical imbalances often lead to unrest. Now, as a law student, I will advocate for clients experiencing human rights atrocities in the Global Human Rights Clinic.

I hope that my career will be marked by eradicating these injustices.

O. Amandhi Mathews

Amandhi is a fourth year Ph.D. student in the Cody Smith Laboratory studying sensory neuron development using zebrafish as a model organism. Amandhi is originally from Sri-Lanka and came to the United States to pursue her bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of Dallas. At Notre Dame, Amandhi has held positions as the Chair of Professional Development and Outreach of the Association for Women in STEM. She is also an ambassador for EducationUSA, a Fulbright Outreach Program that assists the education outreach efforts of Fulbright Sri-Lanka.

Research

Proper formation of neural circuitry depends on the precise organization of the hallmark cells of our nervous system, neurons and glia. The genetic mechanisms controlling neuron-glia dynamics in early development remain largely unknown. To understand these dynamics, I study the establishment of sensory circuits in zebrafish which requires accurate, developmentally timed positioning of neurons and glia. My work has identified two genes, previously unelucidated in nervous system development, as critical for the neurons’ ability to enter the spinal cord and form a circuit. This work ultimately informs strategies and treatments for neurodevelopmental disorders where early aberrant neuronal wiring leads to disease states in neuronal tissue.

Neeraj Maurya

Neeraj Maurya was born in the small village of State Uttar Pradesh, India. Neeraj went to school at a government-run school called “Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya Palghar” and his higher education in chemistry is from Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay and Delhi University. He loves to play cricket and read research articles.

Research

I am an organic chemist in Brian Blagg lab, my work is to synthesize small molecules which can inhibit heat shock protein-90( hsp90) which is highly expressed in cancers.

Kyung Mo Kang

As a JSD candidate and human rights lawyer, Kyung focuses on using international law to address long-lasting human rights violations under authoritarian regimes, with a particular emphasis on transitional justice. Kyung’s research primarily concentrates on North Korea and China. He has published two books on international crimes committed by the North Korean government and has presented on the food crisis in North Korea.

Research

Since the UN determined that human rights violations in North Korea could constitute crimes against humanity and recommended individual accountability, scholars have explored mechanisms for addressing the North Korean human rights crisis. However, these studies often overlook victims’ voices and the democratic legacy. This research seeks the most appropriate criminal tribunal model to promote democracy and peace in North Korea from a transitional justice perspective. Using qualitative methods, including interviews with North Korean refugees, it examines international, domestic, and hybrid tribunal models within the North Korean context. The research ultimately aims to identify the most suitable criminal tribunal model for North Korea.

Angel Muñoz-Carpintero

Angel is a Human Rights Lawyer from Honduras. Angel received his LLM from Notre Dame last year. In his free time, he enjoys playing soccer, tennis, hanging out with friends and reading. Angel is currently in his first year of his JSD.

Research

Beginning Fall 2024 I will start developing my dissertation, preliminarily titled: Remilitarization of post-conflict Central America: Structural and Strategic Impunity of serious human rights violations. Focused on the current Central American context, the proposed study has three core pillars, namely: (1) the constitutional role of the militaries, (2) the use of force by military forces in non-conflict contexts, and (3) the effects of militarization in judicial independence when adjudicating cases of serious human rights situations, enabling impunity.

Raege Omar

Raege is a second-year PhD student in the joint Peace Studies and Political Science program at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies in the University of Notre Dame’s Keough School of Global Affairs. Raege is a Dean’s Fellowship recipient at the University of Notre Dame. His research areas of interest include forced migration, conflict memory and transnational social movements in legal mobilization building upon the renewed global shift directed towards transnational justice and more accountability against impunity in gross human rights violations. Raege hopes to draw on his lived experience in conflict and comparative politics to study multilayered causal relationships in patterns of transnational diaspora activism influenced by conflict memory with temporal and contingent history. He previously completed a Master of Science in Sociology at the University of Texas San Antonio.

Research

Western liberal democracies absorb large numbers of forced migrants with past collective memory narratives which document atrocities to acknowledge victims and identify alleged perpetrators. This study will draw on three case studies to investigate how forced migrants engage in transnational legal mobilization in the absence of transitional justice in their country of origin; or when the country is unable or unwilling to pursue accountability for human rights violations. How and why does forced migrant legal mobilization extend transitional justice into the transnational space to address impunity in lesser-known conflicts in the global south? The project aims to develop a midlevel theory on understanding legal mobilization as a distinct from of transitional justice which is situated at the transnational space

Pavithra Rajendran

Pavithra Rajendran is a JSD candidate, multi-faceted feminist, socio-legal researcher, and first-generation lawyer. She holds dual LL.M degrees: one from Sri Lanka and another from University of Notre Dame, where she was a Fulbright awardee. Currently, at Notre Dame, she’s a Kellogg PhD Fellow, Klau Affiliate, and Law and Economics Fellow. Also, she’s an Ostrom Fellow at the Mercatus Center. Before commencing her JSD, she was a Lecturer in Law at the University of Colombo, Sri Lanka.

Research

Firstly, can outdated, Victorian-era laws and procedures adequately address women’s needs and sensitivities, thereby granting them justice? My research argues ‘no’. Secondly, when women are already marginalized due to socio-economic and cultural factors, can this marginalization be free from the criminal justice system when women seek justice? My research argues ‘no’. Finally, do international and domestic laws sufficiently address women’s rights in criminal law and justice systems, and have they taken commendable steps to eradicate discrimination effectively? My research argues ‘no’. In summary, my research explores how women, already marginalized and vulnerable to violence, are further victimized by existing male-oriented laws and procedures. It also examines how effective domestic and international frameworks can address these issues, analyzing cases from both the Global North and South.

Anna Sokol

Anna Sokol is a PhD student in Computer Science at the University of Notre Dame, with a strong academic background in sociological comparative social research. Her research focuses on the intersection of large language models, ethics, and cultural context. She explores the ethical implications and cultural nuances of LLMs, aiming to ensure that AI technologies are developed and used responsibly, with respect for ethical standards and cultural diversity.

Research

This project aims to develop a multilingual question-answering system for the Colombian Truth Commission Data Archive. By using advanced language models, we ensure the system preserves socio-cultural context and mitigates biases. The goal is to make the archive more accessible and useful for both researchers and the public, helping to uncover historical injustices and promote reconciliation in post-conflict Colombia.

Kyla Walker

Kyla D. Walker is a second-year MFA student in the Creative Writing program. Her research interests lie at the intersection of Middle Eastern Studies, Sociology, Anthropology, and Literatures of Annihilation, Exile, and Resistance with a specific aim to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion in the contemporary U.S. publishing landscape. Guided by the principles of truth and political freedom, her research goals are dedicated to immigrants, refugees, and those from Middle Eastern-American social/racial backgrounds.

Research

I’m currently working on a novel entitled “(Middle) Eastern Standard Time.” Inspired by my mother’s experience immigrating to the U.S. from Turkey in 1993, this manuscript aims to capture and reveal truths about the long history of Islamophobia and xenophobia in the U.S. and the impact it has had on individuals. The novel also aims to eradicate the commonly negative stereotypes of Middle Eastern immigrants portrayed in mass media and American pop culture. Brimful with escapes from arranged marriages to nineties-era cinema to the Lower East Side counter-culture, this novel grapples with what it means to become an independent woman and also an “American” in today’s world.

Subhas Yadav

Subhas Yadav is a PhD student from India at the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures of the University of Notre Dame with research interest in Afro-Latin American, Afro-Caribbean Literatures and Cultures.

Research

My research aims at finding/creating a shared ground between literary studies and the notions of social justice and the questions of equality, liberty and fraternity. I believe there is scope for creating a “relevant literary studies,” which could provide an archive of first-hand materials, or authentic voices/expressions of the real victims, e.g., autobiographies of Dalit, Tribal and Afro-Latino writers.

Yunyan Zhao

Yunyan received her B.Sc. in psychology from Central China Normal University, and M.Ed in developmental psychology from Beijing Normal University. She is interested in child and adolescent development, family dynamics and family system theory, and person-centered methods. She likes to go to movies and plays, go to fairs and other outdoor activities. She also does yoga and watch volleyball games. Besides that, she is a huge fan of glutinous rice products.

Research

My research explores child and adolescent development, focusing on the complex interplay of family and social media influences. Disparities in cultural heritage, socioeconomic status, and family backgrounds can significantly disadvantage youth, making it crucial to understand how these diverse realities shape development. I investigate the impact of family relationships on youth mental health in multicultural contexts and examine how social media use influences body image and eating concerns, particularly in college-aged women.

Georgina Agyei

Georgina is a second-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Biological Sciences under the guidance of Dr. Felipe Santiago-Tirado.

Research

The history of vaccine discovery and utilization, from Edward Jenner to the present, has revolutionized the approach to infectious disease management. I recall a lecture from medical school on measles, a disease virtually eliminated in my country due to vaccination. This achievement in a generation changed the course of health care in the country. Yet, other infectious diseases, like invasive fungal infections, still cannot be prevented. Read more...

The annual incidence rate of invasive fungal infections is estimated to be about 6 million cases with over 50% mortality. In the Santiago-Tirado lab, one of the fungal pathogens of interest is Cryptococcus neoformans. It is a ubiquitous environmental yeast found in the soil and pigeon guano, to which everyone is exposed. In the immunocompromised, such as people living with HIV/AIDS, it causes severe life-threatening cryptococcal meningitis. Cryptococcal meningitis affects approximately 194,000 people, with 147,000 deaths. Advances in medicine including organ transplantation and treatment of autoimmune diseases have resulted in an increase in the population of immunocompromised people, which may increase this disease burden. The advent of antibiotic-resistant strains and a few, expensive and toxic antifungals is worsening this plight.

My research, in collaboration with another graduate student in the lab, uses immunological and cell biology assays, and microscopic techniques to understand the interaction between the fungi and the host alveolar macrophages, the first line of immune defense. When alveolar macrophages encounter Cryptococcus neoformans in the lungs, they form a membrane-bound structure called the phagosome around it, which goes through a series of complex maturation processes leading to the elimination of the pathogen. However, in an immunocompromised person, the pathogen modifies portions of this maturation process enabling it to survive, disseminate from the lungs to the brain, and cause life-threatening meningitis. Understanding how the pathogen does this will help serve as a piece of foundational knowledge for developing cheaper vaccines and improved therapeutics against the disease.

Beyond the need for cheaper vaccines and less toxic drugs is to make them available on time to low-income settings that are disproportionately affected by the disease burden. Data from the COVID-19 pandemic indicates that most of the populations in these areas had less than 10% coverage during initial vaccine rollouts, despite rapid vaccine development. This unfair healthcare coverage results in epidemics that weaken their underserved healthcare systems, and deficient socioeconomic conditions, and reduce life expectancy. This indirectly may affect various industries around the world that depend on the abundant natural and human resources found in these areas.

In the long term, I hope to leverage the skills and knowledge gained from medicine, science, and socio-ethical training such as the Graduate Justice Fellowship with the Institute for Social Concerns, to collaborate with organizations such as the WHO, and research and local government institutions to help strengthen local research and development companies to help serve the needs of such populations.

Kaitlyn Bowe

Kaitlyn is a second-year law student involved in Notre Dame Law School’s Exoneration Justice Clinic. She is committed to advocating for the rights of all people within the justice system. Kaitlyn holds executive board positions on Notre Dame’s Black Law Students Association, the Exoneration Project, and the First-Generation Professional Students Organization. Kaitlyn also serves the Student Bar Association as a Diversity and Inclusion Committee Member.

Research

Her research examines America’s mass incarceration crisis, seeking transformative justice at the intersection of law, community, and equity. Given the existence of staggering statistics and systemic disparities, she endeavors to understand the complexities of America’s punitive approach to criminal justice and advocates for proportionality in sentencing. Read more...

As the world’s leader in incarceration rates, the United States has demonstrated that incarceration alone fails to address the root causes of crime. Kaitlyn’s research explores the disparities and inequities present within the American criminal justice system. From inconsistency in sentencing to disproportionate outcomes, the system places a heavy burden on individuals, families, and communities. African Americans and other marginalized groups are disproportionately impacted, facing harsher sentences and less access to rehabilitative services. However, amid these challenges, hope emerges with the introduction of rehabilitation and restorative justice approaches. Drawing on evidence-based solutions and expert knowledge, these alternatives offer pathways toward redemption and reintegration.

Focusing on rehabilitation rather than punishment, Kaitlyn researches how we can address the underlying causes of criminal behavior and break the cycle of recidivism. Her research offers avenues for addressing the mass incarceration crisis and reducing crime. Central to these recommendations is the need for nationwide legal reforms, grounded in criminology, human behavior, and development. By embracing principles of community, equity, and rehabilitation, legal policies can become instruments of healing and transformation rather than perpetrators of harm and recidivism. Her research explores a new course for the American criminal justice system. Through analysis, advocacy, and engagement with impacted individuals, she seeks not only to understand the system’s failures but to actively contribute to its evolution toward a more just and humane future. By promoting community engagement, equity, and rehabilitation, Kaitlyn believes we can build a legal system that fosters healing, accountability, and societal well-being. By redirecting resources towards preventive measures, such as rehabilitative efforts, restoration, and community support systems, we can foster a society where communities are protected and individuals are empowered to contribute to society in a mutually beneficial way.

Louisa Conwill

Louisa is a third-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering. A graduate of Brown University, Louisa worked as a software engineer for Amazon Alexa and served as a campus missionary with the Fellowship of Catholic University Students before starting graduate studies at Notre Dame.

Research

The Internet was originally imagined as a place where the global human family could find authentic community. While we do experience good benefits from the Internet today, we also experience a number of bad consequences, including polarization, misinformation, and harassment. For some people, these negative effects make them want to get rid of technology entirely. Read more...

However, both secular scholars of philosophy of technology and the three most recent popes agree that creativity is an essential part of being human, and the question is not should we have technology or not, but rather, how can we build technology in a way that promotes human dignity and the common good.

A lot of work has been done in technology ethics to point out the issues with technology, and even to suggest patchwork solutions to fix these issues within the existing technologies. Less work has been done to completely re-imagine what technology would look like if it was built with human values in mind from the start. In our research, we propose Catholic Social Teaching as the basis for a framework to guide the development of Internet technologies towards human dignity and the common good. We chose Catholic Social Teaching to guide our framework because it is a body of work originally formed to respond to the societal challenges caused by engineering: Catholic Social Teaching began in response to the injustices that arose in the Industrial Revolution. As scholars at a Catholic university we find it fitting to draw from the wisdom of our tradition, and Catholic Social Teaching allows us to do so. At the same time, Catholic Social Teaching’s emphasis on human dignity and the common good allows it to have a broad enough appeal to resonate with people of diverse backgrounds.

Thus far, my collaborators and I have created a software engineering framework based on the principles of Catholic Social Teaching intended to evaluate existing technologies in light of Catholic Social Teaching and to guide the development of new technologies towards human dignity and the common good. We propose this framework in our upcoming book Virtue in Virtual Spaces: Catholic Social Teaching and Technology which will be published by Liturgical Press in September 2024. In the book we also examine four case studies of existing technologies in light of our framework and demonstrate that the success of these platforms in creating healthy online spaces is correlated with the extent to which these platforms have aligned with Catholic Social Teaching in their designs. In the future we plan to further our case studies to further flesh out which interaction design patterns are harmonious with our framework and thus should be used in technologies that aim to promote the common good.

Joel Devonshire

Joel is a doctoral student in Peace Studies and Psychology focusing on the psychology of nonviolence, especially the tension/interplay between empathy and insistence for justice; the development and control of moral identity and narratives; how fixed-pie and zero-sum attitudes affect resistance to, and efficacy of, mediation and other conflict interventions; and how a framework of basic human needs might help break down barriers between individuals and groups.

Research

As a scholar-practitioner of peace studies and social/developmental psychology, I am most broadly interested in the psychological dynamics that affect the development of peace and conflict both within individuals and among groups in society. Read more...

My research has focused on two psychological constructs that reflect how people relate to one another amidst social conflict. I believe that these two constructs, when combined and held in tension with one another, are the engine of a constructive and nonviolent social change that contributes to a positive peace (i.e., a peace characterized by social justice).

The first construct is relational empathy. Empathy is one of those buzzwords that one hears all the time, but it has been incredibly difficult for scholars to precisely define and study. In my research, I have been interested in examining how empathy is a relational tool that can be used during conflict to reduce defensiveness and help meet needs in the recipient, which, through processes of positive reciprocity, may in turn help meet the needs of the empathizer. Growing evidence suggests that perceived empathy meets a variety of basic psychological needs and social motives, such as shared reality and belonging, self-esteem, safety, autonomy, and insight and learning (Goldstein et al., 2014; Itzchakov & Weinstein, 2021; Koudenburg, 2018; Reis et al., 2017). It is precisely those needs that are likely to be threatened during conflict, and my research examines whether receiving empathy might even play a larger role in conflict transformation and relational heath than giving empathy. This is because receiving high-quality empathy is a form of metacommunication that signals emotional safety and trustworthiness.

The second construct is critical consciousness, or conscientização, a phrase first coined by the Brazilian educational theorist Paulo Freire that describes a person’s attitudinal and behavioral orientation to structural and systemic social injustice. Critical consciousness includes not only an attitudinal/attributional component about institutionalized inequity (critical reflection), but also an endorsement of sociopolitical efficacy (i.e., a belief that systemic change is possible through, in part, one’s own agency) and critical action (i.e., individual or collective behaviors that are intended to achieve more social justice) (Diemer et al., 2021; Watts et al., 2011). My research has begun to examine some of the psychological factors that contribute toward or away from the development of critical consciousness, such as having early experiences of parental nurturing or multicultural exposure.

Ultimately, I am interested in how nonviolent conflict engagement involves a dialectical tension—or a skillful dance—between insistence for social justice, driven by a robust critical consciousness, with high-quality and unyielding empathy. It is this kind of “fierce love” that I think represents a unique psychological and relational force that is severely undertheorized and understudied. It is also perhaps one of the most difficult psychological feats to accomplish.

Sofia Dueñas

Sofia is a doctoral student in the Department of Sociology. Using quantitative and qualitative methods, her research explores issues of (in)equity in K-12 education policy.

Research

I believe that schools play a key role in the creation of a more just and equitable society. Each day, schools do phenomenal work educating students, promoting empathy, and connecting families with resources. Through this work, schools can change the trajectory of students’ lives. Given the immense power and responsibility of schools, my research thinks about the ways schools implement policies and interventions and the impacts of those efforts. Read more...

My first strain of research considers the impacts of academic policies on students. As a former elementary school teacher, I am passionate about foundational reading skills and ensuring that all students learn to read. In this line of work, I consider the impacts of third grade retention policies under which students who do not show they are able to read repeat third grade in hopes of improving their literacy skills before they get further along in their education. Through my research, I examine trends in which students are most likely to be retained. I consider the ways Black, Latino and white students are differentially retained and how this may relate to state policies that control how retention decisions should be made: whether teachers and school leaders decide, a standardized test or a combination of the two. I also examine how the probability of retention varies by socioeconomic status. Reading is a foundational skill students rely on for the entirety of their lives. Identifying the ways we can support students in building these reading skills is vital.

My second strain of research considers school climate and the ways that this can impact teachers and students. I consider the role of school violence and safety policies and how it shapes students’ and teachers’ feelings at school, as well as their outcomes. This is especially important as we recover from the pandemic and face increasingly difficult school environments including school shootings, book banning, and among other threats. We know that academic outcomes are shaped by many factors including feelings of connectedness and safety. Through my work I aim to consider both academic and non-academic outcomes, and the policies that shape these experiences.

Schools are a key social institution in the US. By understanding how different policies impact students in schools, we can work to make schools better places for everyone. I am committed to conducting research that supports schools in becoming more just, equitable, and joyful.

Ben Francis

Ben is a Ph.D. student in peace studies and political science. He is originally from the United Kingdom and has a decade’s worth of experience working in the development and peace building fields through a number of international NGOs. Ben has lived and worked in conflict-affected areas as diverse as Palestine, Libya, Nepal, and Afghanistan, and these experiences have helped to shape how he understands the drivers and mechanics of conflict in different contexts.

Research

The climate crisis represents an existential catastrophe that threatens to adversely impact everyone on earth for generations. But it will not impact everyone equally, and the manner and extent to which people are impacted will not relate in any way to their role in creating the crisis. It is in this very immediate context of current and future suffering that the idea of justice becomes a central consideration of how we should respond to climate change. Read more...

As a social scientist and a peacebuilder I’m hugely concerned with the social and political effects of climate change and I am especially drawn to questions around the role the climate crisis will play in creating and exacerbating violence and violent conflict around the world. Furthering our understanding of the ways in which this relationship might manifest is key to designing just and practical peacebuilding solutions that prioritize human dignity and security.

Alongside this I am immersed in questions of gender justice and trying to understand how in a world dominated by patriarchal violence and an orthodoxy promoting violent constructions of masculinities, we can seek new ways to pursue gender justice for people of all gender identities. My research often finds intersections across both these areas asking questions such as “Do performances of masculinity exacerbate links between climate change and violent conflict?” and “Where will the impacts of climate change be most likely to reinforce rigid patriarchal norms?” Asking these questions and finding novel, innovative ways to try and answer them are part of my idea of what I want to develop into as an academic. I would like to be able to produce research that not only furthers knowledge but also does so in a way that provides a tangible and practical evidence base for the kind of peacebuilding work that I believe is necessary in pursuit of justice.

In the future I hope to develop these research interests further into a broader portfolio of inquiry that retains questions of climate justice and gender justice as a primary motivation. Increasingly I am drawn to models of research design that move away from a distant and technical scholarly pursuit and towards a more responsive, dialogue-based form of design that begins with understanding community needs and considers the research produced not just as a product but also as a form of solidarity with those most impacted by what is being studied.

James Kirk

James Kirk is a fourth-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Political Science. His research interests include public opinion, political geography, and political behavior. He is particularly interested in rural politics and public policy, including how perceptions of economic, social, and environmental injustice influence political attitudes in rural communities.

Nate Kroeze

Nate Kroeze is a second-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Biological Sciences with a broader focus on global change biology. His current research centers on the disparate impacts of climate change on Indigenous communities in the U.S. and the legal challenges and opportunities for ecological conservation on tribal lands.

Research

Anthropogenic climate change is increasingly causing disruptions to ecological communities upon which Native communities have relied for millennia, raising existential threats not only to ecosystems but to Indigenous peoples. Current governance structures, lacking adaptive capacity, struggle to address these disruptions. However, Indigenous communities are pioneering innovative adaptation strategies rooted in Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK). Read more...

Liz Moison

Liz is a fourth-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Sociology studying gender and social movements. Her research explores how social movements include or exclude children and adolescents in their decision making, especially when the social movement is oriented around issues facing kids directly. In particular, she focuses on how queer social movement organizations are responding to sociopolitical action that targets the rights of transgender children.

Research

Representation is important, especially for marginalized groups whose voices have been historically and systematically silenced. Young people benefit immensely from seeing themselves in the stories they read, and indeed there are slowly and steadily increasing numbers of children’s books that meet this need and represent diverse voices. Read more...

However, these are the exact books that are also under increased scrutiny around the county. 2022 and 2023 were record-breaking years for book ban attempts, both school and public libraries, and these attempts typically target books by or about people of color or LGBTQ+ people. Book bans are happening around the country at the same time that we’re seeing increased concerns over facism in the United States, and efforts at censoring discussions related to race, gender, and sexuality more broadly3, 4, 5. Now more than ever, knowing why people try to censor certain stories, especially stories made for kids, is crucial.

My research seeks to answer the question of why people invest in keeping certain voices and stories out of their public libraries. In short- why participate in a book ban, and what is it about these books that matter? I use a mixed methods approach that combines recordings of library board meetings, interviews with librarians and conservative activists, and analysis of documents and media related to four book ban attempts around the county. This research contributes to sociological studies of conservative social movements, gender scholarship, and more broadly to studies of how inequality endures across time. Conceptualizing book banning as investment in maintaining a particular social structure across generations is useful for exploring the ways that hierarchies of inequality are defended, challenged, or made salient in communities across America.

When we understand why people put a lot of time, effort, and hard work into banning or censoring certain books and stories, we can take an important step forward on the path to justice. At its core, I believe that justice is a collaborative project, and this means listening to and learning from the concerns people have. Doing so opens up opportunities for productive dialogue about books and childhood, reveals the fears or threats that people respond to on a structural level, and makes room for empathy. I hope my research can inform education and outreach efforts that aim to bridge the divide between groups in communities to move towards a more just and equitable future.

Thanh Khoa Nguyen

Thanh Khoa Nguyen is a Ph.D. student in the Integrated Biomedical Sciences program.

Research

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is an urgent public health crisis, affecting millions of people around the world. Furthermore, among 10 people with CKD, 9 are not aware of their conditions. Additionally, kidney diseases have been reported to be more prevalent among the elderly, women, and minorities. Thus, there is an urgent need to understand kidney development for better detection of CKD. One of the major challenges in detecting kidney diseases is our nascent understanding of cell types important for kidney development and the genetic pathways controlling them. For example, multiciliated cells (MCCs) is a specialized cell type only found in many diseased human kidney states (1,2). However, we currently have limited knowledge of the genetic pathways underlying MCC development. Read more...

Ozioma Collins Oguine

Ozioma Collins Oguine is a second-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering advised by Dr. Karla Badillo-Urquiola. His research interests lie at the intersection of human-computer interaction, social media/immersive technologies (Social VR/AR/XR), and online safety and privacy, with a specific aim to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion in computing.

Research

Adolescents constitute a significant demographic in our contemporary digital landscapes, leveraging online platforms for social interaction, learning, and self-expression. Yet they are disproportionately vulnerable to myriad online threats, including cyberbullying, exploitation, and privacy breaches, etc. Read more...

Connor Patrick

Connor Patrick is a candidate in the M.S. in Management program in the Mendoza College of Business with a concentration in Finance. On campus, Connor also serves as a mentor in the Business Honors Program and is an Assistant Rector of Dillon Hall.

Research

Hearing economist and historian Richard Rothstein speak at the beginning of my sophomore year about his then newly-published book The Color of Law completely changed my academic trajectory. I changed my major to urban history and picked up minors in real estate and in politics. I realized that the places where we live, where we work, and more were not created arbitrarily. Read more...

Rather, many of the injustices that we still see today–whole neighborhoods bisected by six-lane freeways, disinvestment in public transportation, a lack of a diversity of housing options (particularly affordable housing), and more–were caused very intentionally by a combination of public policies and private enterprise.

My task now as a graduate student in the Mendoza College of Business has been to explore how the private and public sectors can better work together to right many of these wrongs–to reconnect neighborhoods, invest in affordable housing and public transportation, and more.

Much of my research manifested itself through a real estate case competition I participated in this semester, the annual Real Estate Challenge run by the Harold E. Eisenberg Foundation, a nonprofit organization based out of Chicago dedicated to real estate education. This year’s competition focused on redeveloping 21 acres of land along the Mississippi River in St. Louis, Missouri. The area has seen disinvestment for decades and is completely cut off by Interstate 44, which bisects the City of St. Louis. Rather than focus on a redevelopment proposal that merely maximized return on investment, our team worked diligently to craft a proposal that respected the wishes of the local community around the site and the City of St. Louis more broadly. Many community action plans published over the years have revealed a strong desire for an accessible, mixed-use neighborhood along the Mississippi. Thus we planned a new neighborhood with community small businesses, apartments, two restaurants, other retail options, and a hotel for the site. We also planned to convert a third of the entire site into a public park and trailhead for the St. Louis Riverfront Trail. Projects like these certainly aren’t easy, but our work showed that with dedication, and the right incentives, reinvestment in an area like this one is possible. It is possible to develop not merely based on profit, but with the people in mind as well.

I continue to research how programs like the LIHTC program–the Low Income Housing Tax Credit program, perhaps the most robust system of incentives for private developers to construct affordable housing–can be expanded. Right now it is extremely difficult to win a LIHTC grant, particularly those structured as a 9% tax credit, which minimizes the gap in equity capital needed to fund something like a new affordable housing development. Many other promising signs abound, such as the Department of Transportation’s Reconnecting Communities and Neighborhoods Grant Program, which was launched under the leadership of President Joe Biden and Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg. For Fiscal Year 2022 alone, $185 million was allocated by the federal government for 45 communities across the United States to pursue projects such as dismantling urban freeways. Urban freeways, which usually completely bisect neighborhoods–usually neighborhoods of color–have been systematically proven to increase rates of asthma and certain cancers by 3.4 times.

There is certainly more work to be done. But it is painfully evident to me that meaningful progress will not be made unless the government and the private sector work together to reinvest in and reconnect our communities and better advance the common good.

Kristen Sieranski

Kristen Sieranski is a Ph.D. student in English. Her research focuses on representations of ghosts on stage as a way for playwrights to represent personal, community, and/or national traumas, especially in postcolonial contexts. She is interested in performance as a way for communities to approach the unspeakable.

Research

In my research, I am constellating the relationship between ghosts, performance, and historical calamities of colonization and enslavement around the Atlantic. I analyze haunting in Anglophone drama from the mid-20th Century to the present, using plays from Nigerian, St. Lucian, Irish, Scottish, and American writers to understand ghosts as a phenomenon on stage. Read more...

My project consists of two major claims: firstly, an ideological claim that ghosts in literature are a useful tool for thinking about violence carried out on a national (or global) level; secondly, a generic claim that the presence of ghosts on stage affords mechanisms of understanding historical calamity that are not otherwise available.

Metaphors of haunting abound in literature around the Atlantic, particularly in drama from the last half-century: Wole Soyinka’s Death and the King’s Horseman, Derek Walcott’s Ghost Dance, LeAnne Howe’s Savage Conversations, Marina Carr’s Portia Coughlan, to name only a few. But I realized that most scholarship following the critical “spectral turn” (precipitated by Jacques Derrida’s Spectres of Marx) focused on novels of film. This seemed a shame because metaphors of haunting on stage are, to me, the most exciting. In fact, haunting on stage is barely even a metaphor. If you see a play with a ghost, there is actually a ghost in the room with you. One of the key questions of my work is, “what does a ghost in the room help us understand about time, history, our bodies, our nations, our environments, our lives?”

In my work, I pair plays from different national literary traditions in order to understand:

What strategies exist for depicting ghosts on stage?
How do those strategies speak to the conditions of living in the aftermath of national catastrophe?
How do those strategies speak to the specific historical conditions which haunt the play?

Questions 2 and 3 might seem to be in conflict, but I hope that taking them together will illustrate the relationship between ghosts and historical calamity in broad terms, but also how ghosts exist in the context of specific cultures, orientations to the dead, and circumstances of calamitous violence. For example, August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson and Conor McPherson’s The Veil both feature unseen ghosts which exert physical force on stage. To me, those ghosts offer a way to consider continuing physical consequences of catastrophes which are purportedly already over. At the same time, the ghost in The Piano Lesson speaks specifically to the legacy of American slavery in the lives of Black Americans, while the ghost in The Veil speaks specifically to the Irish big house and colonization in rural Ireland. There are overlaps between these plays that help us understand what ghosts do, but neglecting their differences would obscure how ghosts also function differently depending on the circumstances that necessitate haunting.

I believe that ghosts allow writers to imagine both the horrific ramifications of unrectified pasts resurfacing, but also, paradoxically, allow writers to consider what adequate reckoning with the past would look like in order to create paths toward more just futures. I do not argue that we can simply save the world with theatre, but I do think theatre literally creates space to imagine how the past, present, and future interlock. On stage, ghosts offer avenues to think forward and backward, about success and failure, about violence and healing, about oppression and justice, about living and dying in ways that allow writers, theatre practitioners, and audiences to be haunted together. And if we can be haunted together, maybe we can imagine a world where we do not have to be haunted at all.

Dennis Wieboldt

Dennis Wieboldt is a J.D. candidate at Notre Dame Law School and Ph.D. student in the Department of History. He is a Richard and Peggy Notebaert Premier Fellow at the Graduate School and Edward J. Murphy Fellow at the Law School.

Research

His research explores the relationship between law, politics, and religion in the twentieth-century United States, with a particular focus on the development of American Catholic legal thought and institutions. After Catholic law schools began to rise to prominence during the mid-twentieth-century, Dennis’s research illustrates how members of a once-marginalized faith community attempted to build bridges with non-Catholics to effectuate their vision of a more just society. Read more...

Mariana Alifa

Mariana Alifa is a fifth year Ph.D. student in environmental engineering studying topics related to air pollution and health. She is currently conducting research on socioeconomic disparities in the monitoring and regulation of air pollution’s health effects.

Sara Chan

Sara Chan is a Ph.D. student in philosophy whose research focuses on the metaphysical, epistemological, and ethical issues surrounding marginalization, particularly marginalization due to cognitive disability. She is particularly interested in how love can play a central role in value theory.

Isaih Dale

Isaih Dale is a Ph.D. candidate in English literature. He studies black masculinity and black violence in 20th Century African American Literature. His dissertation elucidates how black writers use both black physical and metaphysical violence as an aesthetic tool for imagining black creation.

Henry Downes

Henry Downes is a fourth-year Ph.D. student in economics, with research interests in labor economics and economic history. He has also worked as a research assistant with the Wilson-Sheehan Lab for Economic Opportunities, where his work focused on the impacts of homelessness prevention programs. His current research focuses on the (often unexpected) ways in which labor power impacts the broader economy.

Spencer French

Spencer French is a Ph.D. student in English, where he studies late 20th century literature, especially literature that explores religion and social justice. His current research focuses on how poets of the late 20th and early 21st century use and co-opt religious language in the fight for social justice.

Geneva Hutchinson

Geneva Hutchinson is an MFA candidate in the Department of Art, Art History, and Design. She works in a variety of mediums, such as photography and installation, and most recently has begun working in embroidery in order to honor the work of women, especially in the southern United States, where she is from.

Helal Khan

Helal Khan is a Ph.D. candidate in anthropology and peace studies in the Department of Anthropology and the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, Notre Dame. His doctoral research looks at the well-being of Rohingya refugees in the three Midwestern towns of Chicago, Milwaukee, and Fort Wayne, with a focus on the notions of trust and hope.

Alexandra Lesnik

Alexandra Lesnik is a second-year law student interested in prison abolition, alternatives to incarceration, and healing from harm within community. She recently completed a summer internship at the Promise of Justice Initiative in New Orleans and recently began a fall internship at the Illinois Prison Project.

Laura López-Pérez

Laura López-Pérez is a Ph.D. student in political science. She is part of the Violence and Transitional Justice Lab at Notre Dame. Her research examines the intersection of political and criminal violence, impunity, and contentious politics in Latin America, especially Mexico.

Aidé Cuenca Narvaez

Aidé Cuenca Narvaez is committed to leveraging the grassroots work of communities that are already working for social transformation through collaborative partnership, empowerment, and mutuality. Her research seeks to understand the effects of education and environmental policies on vulnerable communities.

Carlos Alejandro Noyola Contreras

Carlos Alejandro Noyola Contreras is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures at Notre Dame. His research explores the relationships between poetry, religion, and political independence in Latin America.

Joachim Ozonze

Joachim Ozonze is Ph.D. student in peace studies and theology at the Kroc Institute. His research looks at how conceptions of justice are shaped by unique histories and structures of violence, and explores the possibilities, gifts, and challenges of healing-justice–a concept of justice defined and driven by a journey of individual and social healing.

Erica Patterson

Erica Patterson is a third-year law student with an interest in health law and energy law in both national and international settings. Her current research focuses on global health law.

Tracy Porter

Tracy Porter is a second-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Biology under the guidance of Rebecca Wingert. She is currently working on a gene called Apol1 and its relation to kidney function with the Zebrafish as a model organism.

2024–25 Graduate Justice Fellows

Andrei Badilla Aguilar

Clare Bath

Noemi Fernandez Labarga

Katie Heatherly

Grace Kemgang

O. Amandhi Mathews

Neeraj Maurya

Kyung Mo Kang

Angel Muñoz-Carpintero

Raege Omar

Pavithra Rajendran

Anna Sokol

Kyla Walker

Subhas Yadav

Yunyan Zhao

2023–24 Graduate Justice Fellows

Georgina Agyei

Kaitlyn Bowe

Louisa Conwill

Joel Devonshire

Sofia Dueñas

Ben Francis

James Kirk

Nate Kroeze

Liz Moison

Thanh Khoa Nguyen

Ozioma Collins Oguine

Connor Patrick

Kristen Sieranski

Dennis Wieboldt

2022–23 Graduate Justice Fellows

Mariana Alifa

Sara Chan

Isaih Dale

Henry Downes

Spencer French

Geneva Hutchinson

Helal Khan

Alexandra Lesnik

Laura López-Pérez

Aidé Cuenca Narvaez

Carlos Alejandro Noyola Contreras

Joachim Ozonze

Erica Patterson

Tracy Porter

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