Arun Agrawal, a renowned scholar of environmental politics and sustainable development, will join the University of Notre Dame on Jan. 1, 2025, as the inaugural director of the Just Transformations to Sustainability Initiative, a key priority in the University’s strategic framework.

An elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, Agrawal is currently the Samuel Trask Dana Professor of Governance and Sustainability at the School for Environment and Sustainability at the University of Michigan. At Notre Dame, he will be the Pulte Family Professor of Development Policy in the Keough School of Global Affairs and director of the new University-wide strategic initiative for sustainability.

Drawing inspiration from Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato si’, the Just Transformations to Sustainability Initiative aims to transform how students and faculty at Notre Dame engage with sustainability research and practice. It also seeks to transform the field of sustainability itself through high-impact, multidisciplinary research and knowledge creation, curricular innovations and global engagement.

“The accelerating challenges posed by climate change and its impact on food security, energy, water systems and the built environment threaten the ability of people around the world to live lives of dignity,” said John T. McGreevy, the Charles and Jill Fischer Provost. “As a leading global Catholic research university, Notre Dame has an opportunity and an obligation to marshal our expertise across the disciplines to advance sustainability solutions that will not leave behind the most vulnerable.”

The Just Transformations to Sustainability Initiative will coordinate and amplify sustainability research, education and engagement efforts across Notre Dame’s eight colleges and schools as well as a wide array of centers, institutes and programs. It will develop an agenda for leading-edge research that focuses on place-based and partner-connected solutions and train a new generation of sustainability champions dedicated to caring for our common home and enabling the flourishing of people and nature for a common future.

“I am grateful to the many faculty and staff who have worked on our sustainability efforts, and to the deans of the Keough School of Global Affairs and the Colleges of Architecture, Engineering and Science for articulating a vision for this work,” McGreevy said. “We are thrilled that Arun Agrawal has agreed to lead this initiative as inaugural director. He is an exceptional scholar-teacher and a visionary leader who will significantly enhance Notre Dame’s role and influence in advancing sustainability efforts on a global scale.”

As a leading researcher and professor in sustainability, Agrawal investigates the political economy of institutional change, sustainability and conservation. He has written on Indigenous knowledge, community-based conservation, common property and commoning, agrarian change, and governance of environment and sustainability. His fieldwork has taken him to more than 20 countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America, with current research focusing on India, Nepal, Indonesia, the Philippines, Kenya, Ghana, South Africa and Brazil.

He has led research with support from both public and private foundations around the world, including the National Science Foundation, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Moore Foundation and the United Kingdom’s development cooperation agency. His current projects include a $3.1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Defense Minerva Research Initiative to examine the effects of demographic and climate change on sociopolitical stability in Africa and a grant from the NSF to support international undergraduate training.

Agrawal’s work has appeared in Science, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), American Political Science Review, Current Anthropology and various Nature Portfolio journals. He serves as a member of the editorial board of the PNAS and was the editor-in-chief for the journal World Development from 2013 to 2020.

He received his doctorate in political science from Duke University and he holds an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad. He has held teaching and research positions at the University of Michigan; Yale University; University of Florida; McGill University; University of California, Berkeley; Indiana University; and Harvard University.

In 2022, Agrawal was appointed as co-chair of the Transformative Change Assessment for the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, an organization established to improve the interface between science and policy on issues of biodiversity and ecosystem services. He is also the coordinator of the International Forestry Resources and Institutions research network and interim vice president of the new National Sustainability Society.

Agrawal said he was drawn to Notre Dame’s mission and University-wide commitment to a more just and sustainable world.

“The opportunity Notre Dame presents — to me and to higher education institutions in sustainability — is special. The Just Transformations to Sustainability Initiative represents the perfect integrative design for the triptych of research, curriculum and engagement that real-world impact by any university requires,” he said.

“I felt complete alignment with what I want to do at this stage in my life.”

Mary Gallagher, the Marilyn Keough Dean of the Keough School of Global Affairs and a member of the initiative’s executive committee, said she was honored to welcome Agrawal to the Keough School faculty.

“His scholarship in environmental governance, sustainability and community-based conservation aligns seamlessly with our mission and our commitment to an integrated approach,” she said. “With his leadership and expertise, Professor Agrawal will inspire and enrich our academic community and help propel our sustainability work in the Keough School and across the University.”

To learn more about the Just Transformations to Sustainability Initiative, visit go.nd.edu/sustainability.