The Graduate School is pleased to announce its annual award winners for the 2024–2025 academic year. These awards include: the Distinguished Graduate Alumni Award; the James A. Burns, C.S.C., Awards; the Dick and Peggy Notebaert Award; the Eli J. and Helen Shaheen Graduate School Awards; and the Social Justice Award. The award winners will be formally recognized for their achievements at the Graduate School Commencement Ceremony to be held at Notre Dame Stadium on May 17.

Justin Farrell ‘14 Ph.D., is the winner of the Distinguished Graduate Alumni Award, given each year to a graduate alumnus or alumna of the University who has contributed significantly to scholarship, research, or society. Dr. Farrell earned his doctorate in sociology from the University of Notre Dame in 2014, graduating as a recipient of the Graduate School’s prestigious Shaheen Award in Social Sciences. In the decade since, he has become a rising star at Yale University in the field of environmental sociology, with groundbreaking research and award-winning publications related to the topics of climate change, nature, modern belief, and the American West. His articles on climate change have been called “game-changers” by giants in the field, and he has been inducted into the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences in Rome. To make sure that his impact extends beyond the classroom, Farrell created and runs a student immersion program in the Western U.S. that engages Yale students on environmental, religious, and policy questions in a unique context.

Darren T. Dochuk, Ph.D., is the winner of the James A. Burns, C.S.C., Award in recognition of his outstanding work as a sustained mentor of graduate students over the course of his career. Dr. Dochuk is a professor in the Department of History and co-director of the Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism. In addition to being a world-renowned researcher exploring connections between religion, politics, energy, and the environment, Dochuk has recruited and mentored 15 doctoral students while at Notre Dame, many of whom have gone on to become award-winning scholars in their own right, with tenure-track placements at both national and international universities.

Alexander Dowling, Ph.D., is the winner of the James A. Burns, C.S.C., Award in recognition of his outstanding work as a mentor of graduate students at the midpoint of his career. An associate professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Dr. Dowling has shown exceptional aptitude and dedication to mentoring young scholars in his field, with 11 of his advisees—graduate students and postdoctoral scholars—having already launched successful careers at leading companies and research institutions, including Pfizer, Eli Lilly, and Amazon Research. He currently supervises 12 graduate students and two postdocs; together they create and apply new computational tools to optimize complex systems.

Glen L. Niebur, Ph.D., is the winner of the Dick and Peggy Notebaert Award, which honors a faculty member or administrator who has had a significant impact on graduate studies at Notre Dame. Dr. Niebur has left an indelible mark on graduate studies at Notre Dame through his work on designing and helping launch the Bioengineering Graduate Program, which he directed from 2012 to 2023. During his successful tenure as director, the program more than doubled in size, and now claims many prominent and award-winning alumni in both university and industry settings. Dr. Niebur is a professor in the Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering and currently serves as department chair.

Marlee Elizabeth Shaffer, Ph.D. candidate from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Earth Sciences, is the recipient of the Eli J. and Helen Shaheen Award in Engineering.

An engineer focused on the detection and inactivation of viral pathogens in water systems, doctoral candidate Marlee Elizabeth Shaffer has published extensively during her graduate career—nine total publications, with five of these being first-author or co-first-author publications. She was the first to apply a novel method to assess the persistence and disinfection of norovirus in water systems, and her outstanding research offers a comprehensive framework to improve environmental monitoring, public health interventions, and viral risk assessment and management strategies.

Tegha A. Nji, Ph.D. candidate from the Department of Theology, is the recipient of the Eli J. and Helen Shaheen Award in Humanities.

Tegha A. Nji is a theologian whose exceptional research has centered around fundamental questions about what it means to be human in the modern context, particularly amidst its philosophical and cultural challenges. With multiple publications, awards, and a groundbreaking dissertation, Nji’s work has drawn insights from scripture, Ratzinger’s theology, and African culture—including the concept of Ubuntu (loosely translated as “humanity towards others”)—to mine new dimensions of the doctrine of election that enrich the collective understanding of personhood and humans’ relationship to God and to one another.

Alyssa Marie Willson, Ph.D. candidate from the Department of Biological Sciences, is the recipient of the Eli J. and Helen Shaheen Award in Science.

Doctoral candidate Alyssa Marie Willson is a biologist and leader in the emerging field of ecological forecasting, which attempts to make quantitative predictions of future environmental changes. Willson’s interdisciplinary research is centered around improving society’s ability to predict the consequences of climate change. In addition to having multiple first-author publications in top-tier journals, she was the recipient of a prestigious National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship.

Henry Downes, Ph.D. candidate from the Department of Economics, is the recipient of the Eli J. and Helen Shaheen Award in Social Sciences.

Considered a rising star in his field, doctoral candidate Henry Downes is an economist who works to better understand how the experience of economic precariousness can have broad—and sometimes surprising—impacts on outcomes outside the labor market. His research has made him the recipient of both national and international external awards and fellowships, and his publications and working papers have garnered significant attention within the field of economics. Downes was also the winner of the Graduate School’s Shaheen Three-Minute Thesis competition in 2024.

Oghenemaro Anuyah, Ph.D. candidate from the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, is the winner of the Social Justice Award, given annually to a graduate student in the Notre Dame community who has tackled complex societal issues through scholarship, teaching, and service. As a computer scientist, Anuyah has used her research to embody the University’s challenge to be a force for good and to serve the most vulnerable in our communities. Through ethnographic methods and community-based participatory research, she focuses on how recent advances in large language models and generative artificial intelligence (AI) can be employed to facilitate knowledge management and knowledge transfer within social service agencies. A core component of her research involved embedding herself with four different South Bend social service organizations—St. Margaret’s House, Our Lady of the Road, Center for the Homeless, and the Food Bank of Northern Indiana—where she conducted in-depth fieldwork to understand the service providers’ needs and collaboratively design AI-driven tools that help them better share resources and provide assistance to the communities they serve. Anuyah's research has been published in leading computer science conferences and journals and has been supported by funding from the National Science Foundation.

Originally published by Eric Heath at graduateschool.nd.edu on April 11, 2025.