News

Gate Maker

Gate Maker: Alumnus plays critical role in NASA’s effort to return to the Moon

Author: Andy Fuller

When Gene Cernan and Harrison “Jack” Schmitt climbed into their lunar module nearly 50 years ago at the end of the Apollo 17 mission, it marked the end of an era. The Apollo 17 crew would splash down in the Pacific Ocean a few days later, marking the end of humanity’s presence on the Moon for the foreseeable future. A new age of space exploration was ushered in with the launch of the first space shuttle in 1981. The shuttle program had its own set of triumphs, notably the launch and subsequent repairs of the Hubble Space Telescope. But the pursuit of so-called deep space exploration via crewed missions — including a return to the Moon — did not seem imminent, replaced instead with a series of missions involving uncrewed probes in deep space and crewed missions closer to Earth.…

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Notre Dame Mathematics Doctoral Student, Patrick Heslin, Wins 2021 MAGS Excellence in Teaching Award

Author: Amanda Nowak

Patrick Heslin, a 5th-year Ph.D. student in the University of Notre Dame’s Department of Mathematics, has won the 2021 MAGS Excellence in Teaching Award.  The Midwestern Association of Graduate Schools (MAGS) selects one doctoral and one master’s student each year from a distinguished and competitive field of students nominated by graduate deans from more than 175 universities in a 14-state region of the United States.  Winners are selected based on their commitment to and successes in effective pedagogy. …

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Course Development Grants to Doctoral Students Support Deeper Sustainability Studies

Author: Natalie Ambrosio '17

Sustainability spreads across disciplines, cultures and individuals, connecting us all with a dire challenge, yet also holding different significance to each of us. Three graduate students are using sustainability course development grants to create new sustainability courses that explore the way that sustainability can be complex and elusive, yet at the same time capture elements familiar to all of us.…

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Graduate School Launches 2020 LASER Training Cohort

Author: John Lubker

This August, the Graduate School welcomed the start of another cohort of Leaders Advancing Socially Engaged Research (LASER). This program is aimed at Notre Dame doctoral students in their 3rd or 4th years of study, and is intended to complement students’ individual research pursuits in their various fields. This year’s cohort consists of sixteen students completing individual LASER projects and hailing from each of the Graduate School’s four academic divisions (engineering, humanities, social sciences, and science). …

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Virtual Panel Discussion: “The Intersection of Race, Ethnicity, and Identity”

Author: Event

Join the Africa Graduate Club (AGC) for a virtual panel discussing systemic racism and viable steps towards eliminating racial bias. The panelists will include: Vice President and Associate Provost, Hugh Page Edmund P. Joyce C.S.C. Professor of Anthropology, Agustín Fuentes Black Lives Matter (BLM) activist and Doctoral candidate in Sociology, Emmanuel Cannady…

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Graduate School Honors Student Shaheen Award Winners and Faculty Burns Award Winner

Author: The Graduate School

The Graduate School is pleased to announce its annual award winners for the 2020 Eli J. and Helen Shaheen Graduate Student Awards and the James A. Burn, C.S.C. Faculty Award.  The Shaheen Award recognizes the most outstanding graduate student in each of the divisions of the Graduate School.  The Burns Award recognizes a faculty member who is an outstanding faculty mentor and who exemplifies the value of positive mentor/mentee relationships.  The award winners will be formally recognized for their achievements at the Graduate Commencement Ceremony to be held at Notre Dame over Memorial Day weekend in May 2021. …

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Provost Burish Letter to Students on Covid-19 Issues

Author: Tom Burish

Dear Notre Dame Students, I hope this letter finds you, your families, and your friends safe and doing well in the midst of these challenging times.  Numerous faculty members have relayed to me stories of your patience, resilience, and good humor as you resumed your classes online this week.  I am grateful to you for that as well as for your efforts in many distant locations to maintain the strong sense of community we work so hard to build at Notre Dame. …

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Emergency Support

Author: John Lubker

Pregnant & Parenting Student Assistance Fund Notre Dame’s Pregnant and Parenting Student Assistance Fund (PPSA) manifests the University’s commitment to life by assisting pregnant and parenting students and their families, by easing some of the hidden financial costs that can impose huge financial burdens for students with families living on a budget. Funding for the PPSA is secured by the Office of Life and Human Dignity in the McGrath Institute for Church Life and disbursed through the Office of Student Affairs. Although the fund does not meet the needs of every student-family, it does provide much-needed relief for families encountering a major strain on their finances. In order to attend to those student-families in most need, the PPSA prioritizes financial assistance in the following circumstances, with particular concern for undergraduate students and international students:…

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James Hentig Wins 2020 Notre Dame Graduate School Shaheen 3MT®

Author: Dawn Rizek

Winners of the 2020 Shaheen 3mt Finals, James Hentig, Matthew Dahl and Jordan Cockfield with Dean Laura Carlson James Hentig, a Ph.D. student from the Department of Biological Sciences, won the 2020 Notre Dame Graduate School Shaheen Three Minute Thesis Competition (3MT®) on Thursday, March 5 on the stage in Jordan Auditorium in the Mendoza College of Business.…

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Graduate students encouraged to apply to new fellowship program to advance research and communication skills

Author: Brandi Wampler

The Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study (NDIAS) and the Graduate School have launched a year-long fellowship program that aims to help students accelerate their dissertations, develop their research communication skills, and cultivate professional and scholarly networks, all within the context of a vibrant and supportive intellectual community.

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Anne Martin, '14 Ph.D., works to optimize exoskeleton support for walking assistance.

NSF Grant Provides Next Step for Assistive Walking Exoskeletons

Author: The Graduate School

Anne Martin, Ph.D. '14, was the 2014 Eli J. and Helen Shaheen Award recipient in the Graduate School's Division of Engineering. Established in 1990, the Shaheen Awards recognize excellence as a graduate student in areas such as grades, research and publications, fellowships and awards, teaching, mentoring, and postgraduate positions.    Martin, whose graduate research focused on developing individualized predictive modeling to customize prosthetic walking aides, is now an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Penn State, where her team continues to explore the intersection of machine-assisted human mobility with a National Science Foundation grant. This trailblazing work was recently highlighted in Science Magazine (read  the original article here: https://scienmag.com/nsf-grant-provides-next-step-for-assistive-walking-exoskeletons/).

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Bond Hall by Matt Cashore

Notre Dame Studying the Hurdles That May Prevent Researchers From Speaking Up

Author: Demetra Schoenig and Brandi Wampler

Whistleblowing, or the voluntary reporting of potential misconduct, is critical for the detection and discouragement of misconduct. Yet certain factors, like the potential negative impact on a career or awareness of institutional policies and resources, can prevent individuals from speaking up. To improve whistleblower protections and policies, researchers at the University of Notre Dame have received an award from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to identify such hurdles and brainstorm ways around them, within the arena of research misconduct.…

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Tel Azekah Archeology Dig 800

Unearthing the past: Theology graduate students join archaeologists to discover clues from history

Author: Andy Fuller

Over the summer, Notre Dame theology students joined professional archaeologists to look for clues buried in the ancient soil of the Holy Land. What the students found could make valuable contributions to our understanding of life at the border of biblical Judah and Philistia, as well as the history of the land purchased in the 1960s for what became the University's campus here.

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