Andrew J. Medford Associate Professor in the School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology As a faculty member, his group’s research lies at the intersection of catalysis and surface science, computational chemistry, and machine learning, and he has received several research awards, including the NSF CAREER Award and the Early Career Award from the ACS CATL division.2025 THIELE LECTURESHIP AWARDEESeminar Title: Machine learning in computational catalysis: from electronic structure theory to kinetic models Abstract: Heterogeneous catalysis is an inherently multi-scale process that ultimately connects the behavior of electrons to the global-scale production of chemicals. Understanding how these processes interact is a never-ending challenge, but recent research has shown that application of machine learning and artificial intelligence models is a promising strategy for discovery of novel catalytic materials and advancing fundamental insight at the interface between chemistry and physics. This talk will present progress in the application of machine learning from opposite ends of the multi-scale spectrum. At the scale of electrons, the talk will introduce the use of machine learning approaches to establish a new paradigm of exchange-correlation functional design that uses "multipole features" to provide flexibility between the solid-state and molecular electronic environments that arise in solid-gas/liquid interfaces of heterogeneous catalysis. At the scale of reactors, the use of "kinetics informed neural networks" will be presented as a route to directly analyze large volumes of transient kinetic and spectroscopic data to extract rate parameters that can help elucidate intrinsic kinetics and reaction mechanisms. The talk will demonstrate how these fundamentally different approaches have complementary strengths and weaknesses, indicating that a combination of methods will ultimately be required to understand the complex multi-scale processes involved in heterogeneous catalysis. Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering: Thiele Lecture Series

Michele WaslinAssistant Director, Immigration History Research Center, University of MinnesotaCarol CleavelandAssociate Professor of Social Work, George Mason University Moderated by:Cat GarganoKellogg Doctoral Student AffiliatePhD student in Peace Studies and Clinical Psychology As part of Graduate Student Appreciation Week, the Kellogg and Klau institutes welcome Michele Waslin, a Notre Dame alumna, and her co-author Carol Cleaveland for a talk based on their book of the same name. Private Violence exposes how the US asylum system fails to protect Latin American women fleeing severe gender-based violence, including assault and death threats from intimate partners and gangs. The book reveals the legal challenges these women face due to asylum laws rooted in outdated views that persecution must come from state actors, not private individuals. It advocates for policy reforms to incorporate a gender-based perspective in asylum law, highlighting both the system's flaws and the resilience of survivors and their advocates. Presented by the Kellogg Institute and the Klau Institute for Civil and Human Rights.Michele Waslin is the assistant director of the Immigration History Research Center at the University of Minnesota, where she tracks and analyzes immigration research and policy. She has nearly 20 years of experience in immigration policy research, writing, and advocacy. She holds a PhD in government and international studies from the University of Notre Dame. Carol Cleaveland is associate professor of social work at George Mason University whose research focuses on Latino immigration and gender-based violence. She earned her PhD from Bryn Mawr College and specializes in immigration-related trauma and advocacy for vulnerable populations. For more information, visit the events page.

Emma Murphy will share an overview of her book, Agonistic Transitional Justice and the Pursuit of Post-Liberal Peace: Beyond One Single Truth, followed by responses from Colleen Murphy and Catherine O'Rourke.   About Emma Murphy   Emma Murphy is a postdoctoral research associate with the Clingen Family Center for the Study of Modern Ireland and the Peace Accords Matrix in the Kroc Institute. Her current project supports the Legacy Project, which preserves and engages the digital archive of the Colombian Truth Commission to understand the lessons the Colombian peace process holds for Ireland. Her book explores an alternative to liberal approaches in transitional justice design in Northern Ireland, Colombia, and Uganda. This alternative, agonistic transitional justice, centers on creating avenues within transitional justice institutions for engaging in contestation and encouraging multiplicity rather than focusing on consensus in the post-conflict space. The book examines these agonistic institutions through a gender lens. Murphy completed her doctorate in politics and international relations at University College Dublin as an Irish Research Council Laureate Award-affiliated fellow. She previously served as a teaching fellow at University College Dublin, where she taught courses on egalitarian theory and transitional justice.Originally published at irishstudies.nd.edu.

The Materiality of Medieval Texts working group, sponsored by the Medieval Institute and convened by Laura Banella, CJ Jones, and Johannes Junge Ruhland, invites you to its first meeting of the year. Please import meeting details to your calendar using this link.   We will discuss "(Un)Illustrating the Lyric: Possibilities of an Intermedial Dante," a pre-circulated chapter from Laura Banella's monograph, Rewriting Dante: Lyric Books and Cultural Authority in Medieval and Renaissance Italy (1290-1550), which is in its final stages of revision. Annie Killian will launch us off into discussion with a response, and we will have ample time to share thoughts and questions on the readings. If you are pressed for time and can only skim through the reading, please do come anyway!  Contact information: jjungeru@nd.eduOriginally published at romancelanguages.nd.edu.

The Klau Institute for Civil and Human Rights will host a panel discussion with the Catholic Mobilizing Network on stories of justice from death row. The Catholic Mobilizing Network is a national organization that mobilizes Catholics and all people of good will to value life over death, to end the use of the death penalty, to transform the U.S. criminal legal system from punitive to restorative, and to build capacity in U.S. society to engage in restorative practices. A reception will follow the event in the atrium of the Hesburgh Center for International Studies. PanelistsGary Drinkard spent close to six years on Alabama’s death row for a crime he did not commit — the robbery and murder of a 65-year-old automotive junk dealer in Decatur, Alabama. The case against Drinkard rested primarily on testimony from his half-sister and her common-law husband, both of whom were facing charges for unrelated crimes that would be dismissed in exchange for their testimony against Drinkard. Drinkard reached out to Bryan Stevenson at the Equal Justice Initiative for help with his case. In 2000, the Alabama Supreme Court ordered a new trial because of prosecutorial misconduct, and with the help of the Southern Center for Human Rights, he won an acquittal in 2001.Rev. Dr. Crystal Walker has a Masters of Divinity degree from Payne Theological Seminary and a Doctor of Ministry degree from United Theological Seminary. Her ministry focus is on women who have experienced domestic abuse, rape, and/or incest. She is the founder of Pastors Against Domestic Violence, an ecumenical ministry that trains pastors to be courtroom advocates for victims of domestic violence (women, men, and children). She is also focused on many additional social injustices in the city of Dayton, Ohio. Walker is also a strong advocate against the death penalty and for stricter gun laws. She lost her son, Edward, to gun violence when he was 28 years old. She serves on the board of Journey of Hope – from Violence to Healing and is the co-chair of Ohioans to Stop Executions.Ruth Friedman has dedicated her career to fighting for the rights and lives of men and women sentenced to death, working first on behalf of state-sentenced people in Alabama and Georgia and then for those facing execution in federal courts. She began her capital work at the Southern Center for Human Rights, where she handled direct appeals, habeas proceedings, and trials throughout the South, and later joined the Alabama Capital Representation Resource Center and the Equal Justice Initiative as they transformed capital representation in Alabama. Friedman has testified, trained, and argued in Congress, classrooms, and courts nationwide. In 2023, she received the Southern Center’s Frederick Douglass Award. She earned her J.D. from Yale Law School and her undergraduate degree from Harvard University. Originally published at klau.nd.edu.

Come listen to Jon Coleman, the Andrew V. Tackes College Professor of History, uncover what the Kankakee River can teach us! Where: Multi-Purpose Room (Room 235), Decio Faculty Hall A hint of what's to come: It has been a long time since the Kankakee River quickened anyone’s pulse. Sandwichedbetween Indiana and Illinois at the southern tip of Lake Michigan, the Kankakee boasts neither adelta nor a port. The Indiana section of the river was straightened in the early twentieth century.Locals unlovingly call it “the big ditch.” A forgotten river, the Kankakee conceals the history ofa region and its environmental transformation. It is a case study in the hidden costs of control anddomination. More famous rivers have endured their share of manhandling, but the levees on theMississippi or the dams on the Colorado grabbed as much attention as the liquids they pinned. Inthe heyday of Midwestern drainage between 1890 and 1920, the waters of the Kankakee spurreddebates over economic progress and ecological preservation. Ardors cooled, however, asrecollections of the old river faded. The Kankakee offers a lesson in tangled phenomenon ofwetland destruction and memory loss. It shows what happens when aggressive improvement robsa river of its stories. Originally published at environmentalhumanities.nd.edu.

Join us for Richard Etlin’s body of work on the Pantheon and his unique view on one of the most important architectural buildings in the history of the world. Etlin is an architectural historian and a Distinguished University Professor Emeritus at the University of Maryland. Register to attend online here Co-sponsored by the Center for Italian Studies. Originally published at architecture.nd.edu.

History shows that social movements are able to shape policy if they employ wise strategies, attract mass support, build broadly-based coalitions, articulate compelling narratives, and are persistent in applying pressure for change. Using the Vietnam peace movement, Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign, and Iraq antiwar movement as examples, David Cortright, Keough School of Global Affairs professor emeritus of the practice, will identify lessons for contemporary campaigns to prevent a new arms race and protest movements to oppose authoritarianism and social injustice, including the historic Hands Off, No Kings and Good Trouble mobilizations of recent months. David Griffith, assistant advising professor with the College of Arts and Letters and a concurrent teaching professor with the Reilly Center for Science, Technology, and Values, will serve as the respondent, with Lisa Schirch, Richard G. Starmann, Sr. professor of the practice of peace studies, moderating the discussion. The session will be held in person in Jenkins Nanovic Halls, Rm. 1050, as well as being held live on Zoom. To attend virtually, register here. Photo courtesy of: StephenLukeEdD/Flickr Register here Originally published at kroc.nd.edu.

Classics in the Browning Directed by Eom Yu-naWith Yoo Hae-jin, Yoon Kye-sang, Jo Hyun-do Not Rated, 135 minutesIn Korean with English subtitles The perfect film to celebrate Hangeul Day. This historical drama with comedic flourishes is set in 1940s Korea during its period of Japanese occupation when the Korean language itself was demoted and outlawed. A chance encounter between the illiterate Pan-soo (Yoo Hae-jin) and a representative of the Korean Language Society (Yoon Kye-sang) brings together an unlikely partnership working to publish a Korean language dictionary in defiance of the law. GET TICKETS *Free for ND, SMC, HC, and IUSB students. **Co-presented by the David A. Heskin and Marilou Brill Endowment for Excellence, Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies, Franco Family Institute for Liberal Arts and the Public Good, East Asian Languages and Cultures, Navari Family Center for Digital Scholarship/Hesburgh Libraries.

The Center for Italian Studies is pleased to inaugurate the sixth edition of the series Tre Corone: testi e contesti dell'Italia medievale (2025–2026) with an event dedicated to the recently published volume Voci sul Purgatorio di Dante. Una nuova lettura della seconda cantica (Carocci, 2024), edited by Zygmunt G. Barański and Maria Antonietta Terzoli. The book brings together canto-by-canto readings of Dante’s Purgatorio, developed through a series of five seminars held between September 2022 and September 2023, co-sponsored by the University of Basel’s Institute of Italian Studies and the William & Katherine Devers Program in Dante Studies at the University of Notre Dame. International in scope, Voci sul Purgatorio features contributions from scholars across diverse backgrounds and traditions who, building on the momentum of the Dante centenary, offer a fresh critical reassessment of the Purgatorio and its central themes. In addition to the canto readings, the volume includes essays on the structure and models of the Purgatorio ; its language and style between memory and modernity; the theme of love; the pastoral tradition; and issues of biography and textual transmission. On this occasion, the editors will be joined in conversation by Alberto Casadei (University of Pisa) and Mira Veronica Mocan (University of Roma Tre). Register hereZygmunt G. Barański is the Emeritus R. L. Canala Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures at the University of Notre Dame and the Serena Professor of Italian Emeritus at the University of Cambridge. He is the author of numerous studies on Dante’s works and their reception, on medieval Italian literary tradition with particular focus on authors such as Cavalcanti, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, as well as on modern Italian literature, culture, and cinema, with many essays devoted to Pasolini. His books include: The New Italian Novel (with Lino Pertile, 1993); “Libri poetarum in quattuor species dividuntur”: Essays on Dante and ‘Genre’ (1995); “Luce nuova, sole nuovo”: Saggi sul rinnovamento culturale in Dante (1996); The “Fiore” in Context: Dante, France, Tuscany (with Patrick Boyde, 1997); Pasolini Old and New: Surveys and Studies (1999); Dante e i segni: Saggi per una storia intellettuale di Dante (2000); “Chiosar con altro testo”: Leggere Dante nel Trecento (2001; winner of the Valle dei Trulli Prize for Literary Criticism); The Cambridge Companion to Modern Italian Culture (with Rebecca West, 2001); Petrarch and Dante: Anti-Dantism, Metaphysics, Tradition (with Theodore J. Cachey Jr., 2009); Dante in Context (with Lino Pertile, 2015); The Cambridge Companion to Dante’s “Commedia” (with Simon Gilson, 2019); Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio: Literature, Doctrine, Reality (2020); and Voci sull’Inferno di Dante (with M. A. Terzoli, Rome, 2021). Maria Antonietta Terzoli is professor emerita at the University of Basel and the author of numerous studies on Italian literature from the fourteenth to the twentieth century. Her publications include: Il libro di Jacopo (1988); La casa della “Cognizione” (1993 and 2005); Foscolo (2000, 2008, 2010, and 2016); Le lingue di Gadda (1995); I margini del libro (2004); Le prime lettere di Jacopo Ortis (2004); Piccolomini und Basel (2005); Piccolomini: uomo di lettere (2006); Un archivio italiano (2006, with G. Giovannetti); Con l’incantesimo della parola (2007); Alle sponde del tempo consunto (2009); Letteratura e filologia fra Svizzera e Italia (2010, with A. Asor Rosa and G. Inglese); Nell’atelier dello scrittore (2010); Un meraviglioso ordegno (2013, with C. Veronese and V. Vitale); L’italiano in Svizzera (2014, with C. A. Di Bisceglia); William Blake. I disegni per la “Divina Commedia” (2014, with S. Schütze); L’italiano sulla frontiera (2015, with R. Ratti); Commento a “Quer Pasticciaccio brutto de via Merulana” di C. E. Gadda (2015 and 2016, with the collaboration of V. Vitale); Gadda: guida al “Pasticciaccio” (2016, 2017, and 2018); Dante und die bildenden Künste (2016, with S. Schütze); Invenzione del moderno (2017); William Blake. La “Divina Commedia” di Dante (2017, with S. Schütze); Inchiesta sul testo (2018); Tasso und die bildenden Künste (2018, with S. Schütze); I “Trionfi” di Petrarca (2020, with M. M. S. Barbero); Saba, Ungaretti e altro Novecento (2021); Petrarca und die bildenden Künste (2021, with S. Schütze); and Voci sull’Inferno di Dante (Rome, 2021, with Z. G. Barański). Originally published at italianstudies.nd.edu.

Amit Prasad is an associate professor in the School of History & Sociology at Georgia Institute of Technology. He specializes in global, transnational, and postcolonial sociology and history of science, technology, and medicine. His research focuses on the history of the present — in particular, how history of colonialism continues to impact present day norms, values, and practices. His goal has been to excavate the complex and often contradictory entanglements of colonial tropes, ideologies, etc. with emergent knowledges and practices of science, technology, and medicine. Prasad also explores the visual culture of medicine, in particular its shift with the emergence of technologies such as MRI, issues of priority and invention, and scientific misinformation . He has also published on biopolitics of overseas drug trials and medical transcription and engaged with the role of history of science in films. His research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, American Institute of Indian Studies, among others and he has published in a number of journals, including Social Studies of Science, Science, Technology & Human Values, Theory, Culture, and Society, Cultural Geographies, Technology & Culture. His first book, Imperial Technoscience: Entangled Histories of MRI in the United States, Britain, and India (MIT Press, 2014), through a study of connected histories of MRI in the US, the UK, and India, investigated how the invention, industrial production, as well as cultures of MRI were entangled within colonial, West-centric, and Orientalist discourses. His second book, Science Studies Meets Colonialism (Polity, 2022), investigates how colonial tropes, norms, ideologies, etc. continue to animate the present, including in the fields of history of science and science and technology studies (STS). Drawing on an ethnographic study of a stem cell clinic, he is writing his third book that is tentatively titled Miracle or Science: Scientific Uncertainty, Contested Ethics, and Global Melange in a Stem Cell Laboratory. He is an editor of the journal Science, Technology and Society (Sage). He is also an avid collector of Indian art - medieval miniatures and modern and contemporary paintings and etchings. He is particularly interested in postcolonial cosmopolitanism of Indian art/artists. Prasad's lecture is sponsored by the Liu Institute's South Asia Group and Health, Humanities and Society, Reilly Center for Science Technology and Values.Lunch Provided — Please Bring Beverages In support of the Liu Institute’s growing commitment to sustainability, we will no longer be offering drinks at our public lectures and panels. We encourage audience members to bring their water bottles or to drink from nearby water fountains.   Originally published at asia.nd.edu.

Featuring: General Martin Dempsey, Retired, 18th chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff In conversation with: Rev. Robert A. Dowd, C.S.C., University President The United States and the global community face a myriad of complex foreign policy, economic, and security challenges. In the face of these challenges, what opportunities exist to create a more just and peaceful world?Join us for a conversation with General (Ret.) Martin Dempsey who will draw on his experiences as the senior leader of the United States Military from 2011–15 to offer insights about the importance of creating a culture of hope and building relationships based on trust while navigating even the most daunting challenges. The livestream feed will be posted to this page prior to the event. About General Martin Dempsey, Retired General Martin E. Dempsey was the 37th Chief of Staff of the Army and the 18th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Following 41 years of military service, he now teaches leadership at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and consults for the National Basketball Association on leader development and social responsibility. Since 2016, General Dempsey has also served as the Chairman of the Board of Directors of USA Basketball, the national governing body for all of our country’s international basketball competitions, men's and women's, 5x5 and 3x3, from ages 16 through the Olympics. He is a best-selling author, a decorated soldier, and among other foreign awards, a Knight of the British Empire. He is the grandson of four Irish immigrants, a member of the Irish-American Hall of Fame, and an honorary member of the Notre Dame Class of 2016. Go Irish! He and his high school sweetheart, Deanie, have been married for 49 years and live in Wake Forest, North Carolina. They have three children—each of whom served in the Army—and nine grandchildren.   Originally published at forum2025.nd.edu.

Join the Institute for Social Concerns on Friday afternoons on select home football weekends for MVP Fridays: lectures by national leaders, journalists, and writers on questions of meaning, values, and purpose. Reception and book signing to follow! For the weekend of the NC State game, we welcome Elizabeth Oldfield, author of Fully Alive. Introduction by Paul Blaschko, director, Sheedy Family Program in Economy, Enterprise, and Society; assistant teaching professor of philosophy. Co-sponsored by the Department of Theology and the Nanovic Institute for European Studies.Elizabeth Oldfield is the author of Fully Alive: Tending to the Soul in Turbulent Times, exploring how we can build spiritual core strength for an unstable age. She is also the host of The Sacred podcast, interviewing those who shape our common life about their deepest values. She is an experienced broadcaster, writer and lecturer on themes related to public ethics, spirituality, wisdom and our common life, including on the BBC and in The Times, FT, The Economist, Prospect, and UnHerd, among others. For ten years she was director of Theos, the UK’s leading religion and society think tank, building a healthy and human team culture alongside a commitment to excellence. She is the chair of the board of directors of Larger Us, an organization working to help change-makers bridge divides rather than deepening them.

Saturdays with the Saints has established itself as a popular Notre Dame football pregame ritual that combines the University’s rich traditions of Catholic faith and spirited game days. In this lecture, Cyril O’Regan, the Catherine F. Huisking Professor of Theology, will present on "To Remind of the God Who is With Us: Newman on the Sacred Heart." The lectures take place in the Andrews Auditorium, located on the lower level of Geddes Hall, adjacent to the Hesburgh Library. The talks are free and open to the public. Attendees are encouraged to arrive early as the events tend to fill to capacity.Originally published at mcgrath.nd.edu.

Thad DunningRobson Professor in Political ScienceUniversity of California, Berkeley A vast literature highlights the political, social, and economic consequences of slavery. Yet previous research — particularly in political science and particularly in work on Latin America — appears to have missed important channels through which the regulation of slavery contributed crucially to state-building. In this research in progress, Dunning argues that the regulation of slavery in imperial Brazil contributed to the construction of a bureaucracy that was autonomous in many ways of slaveholder interests and propose the hypothesis that this was driven by imperatives of political survival. He then empirically examine two main vehicles through which an autonomous state was built: responses to lawsuits for freedom brought on behalf of enslaved persons and appeals for protection in the carceral system. The argument and supporting evidence may contribute new comparative insights to the understanding of state-building in the Americas.Thad Dunning is the Robson Professor of Political Science at UC Berkeley and director of the Center on the Politics of Development. His research centers on comparative politics, political economy, and quantitative methods, with a regional focus on Latin America, Africa, and India. For more information, visit the event page. Sponsored by the Kellogg Institute at the Keough School of Global Affairs.

David Miliband, president and CEO of the International Rescue Committee, will deliver a lecture in the auditorium of the Hesburgh Center for International Studies. The international aid system is facing unprecedented pressures. Rising global risks, shifting geopolitical dynamics and reduced funding have left aid efforts increasingly stretched, particularly in the world’s most fragile and conflict-affected regions. Miliband, president and CEO of the International Rescue Committee and former UK Foreign Secretary, will explore these challenges and the need for a focused reform agenda. He will examine how aid can concentrate on the areas of greatest need, foster efficiency and innovation and continue its essential mission of combating extreme poverty and alleviating human suffering even in the face of tighter budgets. This event is in partnership with the Keough School’s Pulte Institute for Global Development. About the Series This event is part of the Dean's Forum on Global Affairs, designed to bring world leaders into conversation with Notre Dame students, faculty and the broader community around current challenges shaping global affairs. Originally published at keough.nd.edu.

Please join the Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies and the Raclin Murphy Museum of Art for a public conversation with Caroline Campbell, director of the National Gallery of Ireland. Campbell will be joined in conversation by Judith Stapleton, postdoctoral research associate at the Keough-Naughton Institute.  Copies of Caroline Campbell's Power of Art (Pegasus Books, 2024) will be available for purchase after the event. About Caroline Campbell Born and educated in Belfast, Caroline Campbell became director of the National Gallery of Ireland in November 2022. Caroline studied modern history at University College Oxford, and has an M.A. and Ph.D. from the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London. She is a former Fellow of the Center for Curatorial Leadership, New York. Before joining the National Gallery of Ireland, Caroline was Director of Collections and Research at the National Gallery, London. Earlier in her career she held curatorial positions at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, the Courtauld Gallery, London, and the National Gallery. Caroline has published widely on European art from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century, particularly on the Italian Renaissance. She has curated and co-curated many exhibitions, including Bellini and the East (2005-06), Love and Marriage in Renaissance Florence (2009); Building the Picture: Architecture in Italian Renaissance Painting (2014), Duccio/Caro: In Dialogue (2015) and Mantegna and Bellini (2018-19). Caroline is a strong advocate of widening participation and digital engagement in museums. Her interest in art history developed after a visit to the National Gallery of Ireland as a teenager, and she wants all young people to be able to see and enjoy great art.   Originally published at irishstudies.nd.edu.

As technology continues to grow at a rapid rate, companies need liberal arts majors who understand that, when it comes to AI, the inputs matter, and how you apply the technology has a critical impact on people. Join the Technology & Digital Studies Program and Beyond the Dome as we invite industry experts to discuss how they're leveraging AI in their business and what students need to know to have successful careers in these industries. September 29: Melissa Summers October 15: Kevin O'Brien November 19: Jason Fournier Register Kevin O'Brien's Biography Kevin O'Brien is an investor and board member at Lirio, a behavior change artificial intelligencebusiness focused on driving improved outcomes through AI-driven hyper-personalized wellnessand chronic condition management interventions; EmOpti, a founder-led telehealth businessfocused on workflow improvements in health systems; and Memorial MRI, a Texas-basedfreestanding imaging center and interventional pain business. He is also a board member of theSpecial Operations Fund, a 501(c)(3) dedicated to the families of JSOC’s special mission units,and an advisor to the U.S. Diplomatic Studies Foundation, a 501(c)(3) focused on supportingand enhancing the educational and training needs of U.S. government departments andorganizations through innovative programs.In 2021 he retired from CCMP Capital Advisors, LP, a New York-based private equity firm where,over the previous 21 years, he was a managing director leading the healthcare practice and amember of its Investment Committee. O'Brien was deeply involved in, and served on theboards of CCMP investments including Eating Recovery Centers (behavioral treatment for mood and anxiety, eating and related disorders), CareMore Medical Enterprises (Medicare Advantagehealth plan), LHP Hospital Group (short-term acute care hospital company focused on JVs withlarger health systems), Medpace (contract research organization focused on human drug trialsprimarily for biotech companies), National Surgical Care (ambulatory surgery centers),Infogroup (marketing data services), and La Petite Academy (early childhood education).Prior to joining JP Morgan Partners in 2000, CCMP’s predecessor firm, O'Brien worked ininvestment banking in the high yield capital markets and banking groups at Chase Securities andChemical Securities. Prior to that, he was a commissioned officer in the U.S. Navy where heserved as a surface warfare officer from 1988 to 1992. O'Brien holds a B.A. from the University of Notre Dame and an M.B.A. from the WhartonSchool of the University of Pennsylvania.Originally published at altech.nd.edu.

Get a one-hour sampling of the power of a Notre Dame liberal arts education with the College of Arts & Letters' Crash Course series on home football Fridays! Each event features an A&L professor leading a class session pulled directly from some of the most popular and riveting courses on campus."Space Ethics" with David Clairmont (Theology) and Heather Foucault-Camm (McGrath Institute for Church Life)  The human journey into space has captivated the imagination but has also raised significant ethical issues. As the human presence in space for research, recreation, commerce, and possible future habitation draws closer, the urgency of addressing the ethical issues surrounding the human presence in space has also increased. In this session, attendees will get a sense of how this course considers the theological and cultural understandings of the origin and meaning of the cosmos, reviews the various ways that human beings have approached their presence in space, and contemplates the ethical issues associated with space commerce.  Alumni, friends, prospective students and their parents, and anyone else on campus are welcome.   Visit Crash Course for a complete listing of courses this season.Originally published at al.nd.edu.

Featuring: Cardinal Robert W. McElroy, Archbishop of Washington In Conversation With: Rev. Robert A. Dowd, C.S.C., University President In a political landscape where many Americans perceive political discourse has become unproductive, stressful, and disrespectful, where do we find reason for hope? Join us for a timely conversation that will explore the roots of our societal divides and offer strategies to move forward together toward a more unified future. The livestream feed will be posted to this page prior to the event. About Cardinal Robert W. McElroy Robert Cardinal McElroy is the eighth Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Washington. Upon graduation from high school, Cardinal McElroy was committed to seeking a life in the priesthood but concluded that it would be best to pursue his vocation in a college outside the seminary system. He received a bachelor’s degree in American history from Harvard College and received a master’s degree in American history and a doctorate in political science from Stanford University. He also earned a master’s degree in divinity (M.Div.) at St. Patrick’s Seminary, a licentiate in sacred theology (STL) from the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley, California, and a doctorate in moral theology (STD) from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. He was ordained a priest of the Archdiocese of San Francisco on April 12, 1980. His first assignment was St. Cecilia Parish in San Francisco, which was the parish where both of his parents had grown up, attended grammar school, and were later married. Parish work has always been his first love. In 1989, Cardinal McElroy served as parochial vicar at St. Pius Parish in Redwood City. In 1995, Archbishop Quinn appointed then-Father McElroy vicar general of the Archdiocese, a post he continued to hold under Cardinal William Levada, who succeeded Archbishop Quinn. The following year, then-Father McElroy was made a prelate of honor by St. John Paul II and appointed pastor of St. Gregory Parish in San Mateo by Cardinal Levada. He had the immense happiness of serving in this same parish for more than 15 years. Then-Bishop McElroy was appointed auxiliary bishop of San Francisco by Pope Benedict XVI on July 6, 2010, and was ordained at St. Mary’s Cathedral on September 7, 2010. He became the Archdiocesan Vicar for Parish Life and Development and served in that role until his appointment to be the sixth bishop of San Diego in March 2015. Pope Francis appointed then-Bishop McElroy to the College of Cardinals on May 29, 2022. He was installed in a consistory on August 27, 2022, at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Pope Francis appointed Cardinal McElroy the eighth Archbishop of Washington on January 6, 2025. Cardinal McElroy is a member of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development and the Dicastery for Laity, Family, and Life. Originally published at forum2025.nd.edu.