Extraordinary good for this world

Researching for the Common Good Symposium celebrates undergraduate summer research

October 15, 2025

As the child of immigrant parents from Colombia, sophomore Maya Tello was taught to work hard and make good choices. So she couldn’t understand why her older sister couldn’t break her pattern of addiction and incarceration.

“I carried a quiet resentment for the pain her choices caused our family,” Maya, a double-major in design and the program in liberal studies, shared. “I thought change was simply a matter of discipline.”

Then this past summer through the Institute for Social Concerns’ NDBridge program, Maya spent eight weeks at Dismas Farm, a non-profit that provides housing and services to unhoused returning citizens on a 12-bed, working farm in Oakham, Massachusetts, where residents learn critical vocational skills to reintegrate positively and meaningfully with society.

Attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, playing Monopoly, and sharing stories over meals with the residents of Dismas, Maya grew to understand and appreciate how healing is not a linear process but one that requires family, community, services, and hope.

Recognizing the transformative power of programs like those offered by Dismas Farm, Maya pursued research on how such programs could be expanded and replicated across the United States. On Thursday, October 2, Maya presented her research at the institute’s annual Research for the Common Good Symposium and Andrews Scholars Reception.

After studying the success of restorative justice approaches in Norway and Germany with the directors of Dismas, Maya offered five policy recommendations for the carceral system in the United States. These include mandating early reentry planning, funding community partnerships before release, mandating emotional wellness and vocational programs, providing digital literacy programs, and offering aftercare such as legal assistance, housing support, and peer mentorship for returning citizens.

“One of the deepest lessons I carried from this summer is that accountability is the greatest motivator for change,” she stated. “Punishment, as it exists in much of our justice system, is passive; it is something done to a person. Accountability, in contrast, is something a person must do for themselves.”

“If we are willing to build policies that honor this,” she concluded, “we can create a justice system that doesn’t just punish, but prepares people to return to their communities as whole, contributing members. And in doing so, we can all develop a kind of practical wisdom—an understanding that transformation is never linear, but always human.”

Maya was one of six research award recipients, joined by fellow NDBridge participants and Social Concerns Summer Fellows who were among the 283 students who participated in the institute’s programs across 149 partner organizations in 36 countries last summer. With her award, she plans to continue her research next summer by traveling to Japan and Thailand to add Eastern perspectives on restorative justice in order to better understand why the United States hasn’t yet adopted such an approach and what is still needed to be able to implement the policy changes she recommended.

Junior David Yawman was one of 121 students placed internationally last summer. Through a Social Concerns Summer Fellowship, David spent eight weeks in the Acholi region in northern Uganda at the Paimol Martyrs Shrine. There he was struck by the natural beauty of the region and gregariousness of the Acholi people, while also learning of their mistreatment dating back to the colonization of Uganda by the British Empire and continuing even after Uganda gained independence in 1962.  

As a mechanical engineering major with a poverty studies interdisciplinary minor at the institute, David was tasked with gaining a better understanding of biogas implementation in the area as an alternative to charcoal or wood-burning stoves that cause lung damage in poorly ventilated huts and present economic and environmental concerns.

David even had the opportunity to assist with the installation of a biogas system in the town of Kalongo. The system utilizes cow dung to produce a clean, renewable source of fuel, while also creating an effective fertilizer for crops, thus paying for itself in less than two years of use. 

In addition to learning about the mechanics of the biogas system, David researched ways biogas could be spread more effectively across the country. Determining that the main obstacle to their widespread implementation is the upfront cost, David proposed that by manufacturing the materials for the biogas systems in Uganda and utilizing village savings and loan associations, which are already prevalent in Uganda, “biogas has the potential to bring justice to a region that has been treated unjustly for 150 years.”

“As I reflect on my summer and look forward to the future,” David shared, “this idea that I’m falling in love with is how the people who are closest to a problem are the ones best equipped to solve it. And it’s something I encountered countless times during my summer in Paimol, just the local knowledge that was imparted upon me by everyone I interacted with that guided me to proper solutions and a deliverable that felt like it mattered.”

“Tonight marks a comma for these students, not a period,” said Emily Garvey, associate director of justice education, at the symposium. “They created changes and were changed in tremendous ways this summer, and they will now take what they witnessed, experienced, and learned and use their gifts and talents to create a more just and beautiful world.”

Garvey explained how the research of NDBridge and Social Concerns Summer Fellowships incorporates the Catholic social teaching principles of human dignity, solidarity, subsidiarity, and the preferential option for the poor and vulnerable.

The institute has offered immersive summer programming to Notre Dame students since its founding in 1983. Supported in part by the extraordinary generosity of Andrews and McMeel families, thousands of Notre Dame students have had transformative summer experiences while working toward the common good alongside community organizations around the world. “Your research is phenomenal,” Hugh Andrews told students, speaking on behalf of the Andrews family. “Let me tell you how happy I am to be here and how much it means to my family.”

In her remarks to the students, Suzanne Shanahan, Leo and Arlene Hawk Executive Director of the institute, stated, “I hope this work has reaffirmed your love and commitment to the world. I hope that it has fortified a strong sense of moral ambition and began what will be a lifelong commitment to knowledge in the service of justice. I hope that you will be relentless and, indeed, ferociously committed to be an extraordinary person committed to extraordinary good for this world.”

See each of the 2025 award recipients and finalists below and read more about undergraduate research at the institute.

2025 Award Recipients

Camila Castaneda, biochemistry, theology
Partner organization: CrossOver Healthcare Ministry, Richmond, Virginia
Faculty mentor: Terence McDonnell

Camila’s Summer Fellowship research looked at the efficiency and sustainability of interpretations services for non-English-speaking patients.

Erin Kong, neuroscience and behavior, anthropology
Partner organization: Emmaus Health Center and Franciscan Girls’ Secondary School, Sanya Juu, Tanzania
Faculty mentor: Marie Donahue

Erin’s NDBridge research focused on structural and cultural systems in rural Tanzania and how they inform patterns of disease and local health outcomes.

Kyle Lauckner, political science, economics
Partner organization: Earthlinks, Denver, Colorado
Faculty mentor: Annie Coleman

Kyle’s NDBridge research focused on the impact Earthlinks has had in Denver in terms of nutrition access, housing initiatives, and interactive workshops and how those results could inform the work of other non-profits working with the poor and unhoused.

Joan Reimer, applied and computational mathematics and statistics, environmental science
Partner organization: Abbey of Regina Laudis, Bethlehem, Connecticut
Faculty mentor: Margaret Pfeil

Joan’s Summer Fellowship research examined the work and practices of the Rule of Saint Benedict, which she believes provides a framework for living a just life.

Maya Tello, design, program of liberal studies
Partner organization: Dismas Farm, Oakham, Massachusetts
Faculty mentor: Sam Sokolsky-Tifft

Maya’s NDBridge research examined reentry programs such as Dismas House and how they might be used in the US justice system to promote long-term rehabilitation, recovery, and reintegration.

David Yawman, mechanical engineering
Partner organization: BOSCO – Paimol Martyrs Shrine, Kalongo, Uganda
Faculty mentor: Robert Nerenberg

David’s Summer Fellowship research looked at the benefits of the widespread adoption of biogas in northern Uganda and the technical and economic barriers to adopting them.

2025 Finalists

Liam Carey, finance, history
Partner organization: Mission of Our Lady of the Angels, Chicago, Illinois
Faculty mentor: Brett Robinson

Liam’s NDBridge research looked at how ending The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) enacted during COVID has impacted the local food pantries that are desperately needed in the West Humboldt Park neighborhood and elsewhere.

Madison Chambers, architecture
Partner organization: Maggie’s Place, Phoenix, Arizona
Faculty mentor: Marianne Cusato

Madison’s Summer Fellowship research focused on how the architectural design and location of transitional housing impacts the well-being of residents and promotes self-sufficiency.

Ashley Ramirez Casanova, finance, Spanish
Partner organization: Parroquia Nuestra Madre Santísima de la Luz, Monterrey, Mexico
Faculty mentor: Jaime Pensado

Ashley’s NDBridge research looked at how humanitarian organizations fill the gaps left by the government in terms of welcoming, protecting, and supporting the development of migrants in Mexico.

Ashly Turcios Sierra, global affairs, business analytics
Partner organization: Paz y Esperanza, Lima, Peru
Faculty mentor: Ryan Juskus

Ashly’s Summer Fellowship research explored risk factors that contribute to the vulnerability of children and adolescents, particularly in contexts marked by poverty, gender-based violence, and institutional neglect.

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