In May 2026, 17 Notre Dame undergraduates traveled to the Borgo Laudato si’ to participate in an immersive course dedicated to cultivating a vision for living an integral ecology that reflects the joy of St. Francis and transforms our relationships with God, one another, and the Earth. A central pillar of Notre Dame’s partnership with the Borgo Laudato si’ focused on advancing education, research, and collective action for Integral Ecology, the one-credit course was designed by Notre Dame’s Office of Undergraduate Education, Institute for Educational Initiatives, and Just Transformations to Sustainability Initiative. Rev. Daniel G. Groody, C.S.C., vice president and associate provost for undergraduate education and professor of theology, and Professor Arun Agrawal, director of the Just Transformations to Sustainability Initiative and Pulte Family professor of development policy, co-taught the course.

“This course provides the opportunity to engage a critical issue at a critical time,” Fr. Groody said. “Guided by the vision of Pope Francis, which Pope Leo is continuing, it will allow our students to make a greater impact in the care of our common home.”

Throughout the week at the Borgo, students examined current sustainability challenges through the lens of integral ecology rooted in hope and justice. With an overarching thematic exploration into the doctrine of creation, along with human work and sustainability on Earth, each day examined how integral ecology connects us to the Earth, sun, and water, guiding us to protect God’s creation. Using the Borgo grounds as an experiential learning environment, the students learned from the Borgo’s practitioners about the grounds’ alternative energy sources, worked in the gardens, and participated in a local cooking class.

“I have developed a deep admiration for Pope Francis and his vision of integral ecology as something that is profoundly human and spiritual, inseparable from how we choose to uphold human dignity, compassion, justice, and solidarity with each other,” said Notre Dame senior Lauryn Biondi. “The values of ecological conversion and human solidarity are not only held at the Borgo, but truly lived and cherished by those who work on the grounds and believe in its mission. I’m so grateful to have encountered its many blessings firsthand through Notre Dame’s partnership with the Vatican.”

Students interested in participating in “Integral Ecology at the Borgo Laudato Si'” during May 2027 can visit the Notre Dame study abroad website for more information and a course application.

Aida Arosoaie is an environmental anthropologist whose work uses multi-sited mixed methodology—namely, archival research, oral history, ethnography, collaboration, and art-making—to examine the interplay between technoscience, resource extraction, racial capitalism, and postcolonial agendas of justice. By exploring the interrelations between natural rubber cultivation, tropical forestry management, and synthetic rubber production over the past century in Malaysia and beyond, Aida’s research grapples with the social, ecological, and geopolitical entanglements produced by competing modes of resource extraction. Aida holds a PhD in Anthropology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Carlos Calvo Hernandez is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Pulte Institute for Global Development, specializing in socio-environmental systems, climate risk, and data analysis. Carlos is conducting a Global Synthesis of the socioecological contexts of Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining (ASM) to create a comprehensive global database that serves as a central source repository for research and policy questions regarding the sector. Carlos holds a Ph.D. and M.Phil. in Policy Analysis from the RAND School of Public Policy, an M.P.A. in International Policy and Management from New York University, and a B.Sc. in Mathematics from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM).

Yujin Hazel Lee is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow whose current work explores equitable energy transitions at a continental scale, drawing on large-scale geospatial, temporal, and socioeconomic datasets. Prior to joining JTSI, Hazel earned her Ph.D. in Regional Science from Cornell University, and holds a B.A. in International Studies and M.I.S. in Development Cooperation from Ewha Womans University in South Korea. She has also worked in Ethiopia with the Korean government, and the World Bank as a short-term Consultant.

Nabin Pradhan is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow with the JTS Initiative. His research examines contemporary sustainability challenges, with a particular focus on climate change, biodiversity loss, and inequality. His work takes an interdisciplinary approach, drawing on sustainability science, public policy, geography, applied econometrics, and data science. He uses computational and data-driven methods, including causal inference, geospatial analysis, remote sensing, machine learning, climate model outputs, and large-scale survey data, to examine how environmental change affects human well-being and inequality and how public policies and institutions can support more equitable and sustainable development. He holds a Ph.D. in Environment and Sustainability from the University of Michigan.

Paula Sarmiento is a postdoctoral research fellow at the JTS Initiative, where she leads research on Amazon conservation. Her research and teaching focus on environmental economics and sustainable development. She is an environmental economist working on applied microeconomic and environmental policy research related to climate solutions. Paula earned her doctorate in Environmental Policy from Duke University (USA) and she holds a master's and undergraduate degree in Economics from Universidad de los Andes (Colombia).

Guangcan Su is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Integrated Assessment of Data Centers cohort at the University of Notre Dame. His research combines life cycle assessment, techno-economic analysis, geospatial modeling, and artificial intelligence to evaluate the environmental and economic implications of emerging energy and infrastructure systems. At Notre Dame, he will investigate how data center growth affects electricity demand, water use, carbon emissions, and communities across Indiana and the Midwest to support more informed and equitable infrastructure decisions. Before joining Notre Dame, Guangcan was a Postdoctoral Scholar at Northwestern University, where he led sustainability assessments of direct air capture and carbon dioxide conversion technologies. He earned his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Universiti Malaya.

Clare Sullivan is a postdoctoral research fellow at the JTS Initiative. She is working with the community-based conservation evidence synthesis working group to evaluate the status, impacts, and potential of community conservation in land and marine systems globally. Her work combines field data, data science, spatial data and remote sensing to analyze the social, ecological, and climate impacts of different land management and conservation strategies in tropical systems. Clare has a doctorate in Geography from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with Dr. Holly Gibbs. She completed a Master’s in International Affairs from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, with a concentration in environmental science and policy. She has a Bachelor's degree from Washington University in St. Louis.

Hannah Yin is a postdoctoral research fellow with Notre Dame’s JTS Initiative, leading and facilitating quantitative research for the synthesis working group “Climate Change, Biodiversity, & Environmental Justice: A Synthesis of Ecological & Socioeconomic Risks” developed in partnership between JTS and the University of Michigan's Institute for Global Change Biology (IGCB). In transitioning to this role at Notre Dame’s JTS Initiative, Hannah completed her doctorate in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at Rice University and her undergraduate degree from Tufts University, where she double-majored in Biology and Computer Science.

Rafia Zaman is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow with JTS Initiative, contributing to an integrated assessment of data center growth in Indiana and the Midwest. Applying an environmental and resource governance lens, her work examines how this growth is governed and how benefits, costs, and risks related to electricity, water, land, housing, and local employment are distributed across host and neighboring communities. Prior to joining Notre Dame, she was a Postdoctoral Associate at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University. Rafia holds a PhD in Environmental Systems Sciences, with a focus on Sustainability and Innovation Management, from the University of Graz in Austria. She also holds an MBA from the Asian Institute of Technology in Thailand and a BBA from Khulna University in Bangladesh.

Katherine Spiller, an environmental sciences and peace studies major from Forney, Texas, has dedicated her summer to conducting research and fieldwork in the local community, as part of the St. Joseph County Kettle Lakes Corridor Research Project.

The “corridor,” as Spiller refers to it, is a chain of lakes located west of South Bend. The region acts as a corridor allowing different animals and plants to move throughout the area. This movement is crucial for maintaining healthy populations.

Having earned a Sustainability in Action Fellowship, Spiller has gained valuable experience and perspective through her work with Dominic Chaloner, Professor of the Practice and Director of Undergraduate Studies for the Environmental Sciences major. Throughout their fellowships, participants are asked to write three reflections documenting their growth and development. “It’s been really interesting seeing the progression of my work,” Spiller said. “It’s taken a totally different trajectory than I thought it would, and I love being able to go back and reflect on it.”

Spiller began her work on the preexisting St. Joseph County Kettle Lakes Corridor Research Project. The multifaceted initiative involves monitoring amphibian populations, testing water quality and conducting interviews with local residents. Spiller’s work has taken her to many locations throughout the corridor. Her hands-on fieldwork has included documenting the conditions at various lakes, implementing pollinator-monitoring stations at a local bog, and contributing to a wide variety of ongoing tasks.

“We’re trying to establish a baseline for current ecosystems, so that in the face of developments, we have this baseline to compare it off of,” Spiller said.

Chaloner said that documenting the corridor today will eventually allow researchers to measure how these ecosystems change over time.

“By collecting information now about the current status of things, we can establish in the future how much change has occurred and then make predictions about how much further change will likely occur,” he said.

Spiller’s initial interest in environmental science was sparked at an early age. As a child, she felt drawn toward animals and the outdoors: feeding rabbits in her yard, nursing injured birds back to health, and eagerly watching the animated series Wild Kratts. Spiller explained that she feels a “sense of peace in nature,” and feels especially close to God when spending time outdoors.

Spiller’s primary role in the project involves interviewing local residents to gain a better understanding of how people impact these interconnected lakes, what drives their actions, and how the community can better care for this important habitat. Chaloner said that “if we do not consider the human component, then more than likely the solutions we come up with will not work to address environmental change.” Spiller aims to create natural dialogue between herself and the residents. For Spiller, the most rewarding part of her work is finding the connections among people and places.

Chaloner introduced Spiller to a new way of approaching research. One concept he emphasizes with his mentees is “parallel processing,” which involves the ability to think ahead about what you hope to achieve, while simultaneously working through challenges and tasks of the present moment. For Spiller, this change in mindset has reshaped the way she approaches her research, and the long-term impact it may have.

The St. Joseph County Kettle Lakes Corridor Research Project is a long-standing effort that has been shaped by the contributions of many students. Isabella Rempel, a rising senior, established the water-monitoring and water-sampling component of the project, while fellow rising senior Jayden Meredith has begun pollinator-monitoring efforts. Thaddeus Lipinski and Samuel Bosio, both recent graduates, also played integral roles in launching the project through their work with amphibian monitoring, helping establish the foundation for the research being conducted today, which rising senior Hannah Hartnett has continued. Spiller hopes to build upon these efforts.

After spending the summer researching and analyzing the community around her, Spiller said, “Yyou don’t have to go to an exotic place to make a difference.” She encourages others to look closer to home, and recognize the opportunity to create meaningful change in their own communities.

“Think globally, and act locally,” said Spiller.

Originally published by Anna Kate Mereness at science.nd.edu on August 11, 2026.

The encyclical was officially signed on May 15, the 135th anniversary of Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical responding to the industrial revolution, Rerum novarum.

Below, University of Notre Dame faculty experts from the College of Arts and Letters, College of Engineering, Keough School of Global Affairs and Law School offer their insights into the document.

Rev. Daniel Groody, C.S.C.

Rev. Daniel Groody, C.S.C., serves as vice president and associate provost for undergraduate education and professor of theology and global affairs. In addition to his role at Notre Dame, Father Groody is a member of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development and plays a key role in Notre Dame’s partnership with the Vatican’s Laudato Si’ Center on issues of integral ecology and global sustainability. His research focuses primarily on migration, theology, refugees and human displacement.

“Pope Leo’s Magnifica humanitas calls us to continually discern what it means to be human before God in a world increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence,” Father Groody said. “While this new digital age offers unprecedented possibilities for development, it simultaneously demands that we rediscover the true contours of our humanity. This authentic identity — rooted in an interior life, a moral conscience, human connections and a transcendent relationship to divine love — can never be quantified, modeled or replicated by machine learning. Against the technocratic impulse to reduce the human person to a mere data point, the encyclical boldly reasserts that we cannot be measured solely by technological acceleration but by holistic human development, human dignity and our commitment to the common good.

“Alongside new innovations, artificial intelligence reveals ancient temptations of radical self-sufficiency and idolatry. Warning against the modern temptation to construct a digital Tower of Babel in the pursuit of technological mastery, Pope Leo calls us instead to channel our energies into building the Kingdom of God and animating a ‘Civilization of Love.’ This sacred task requires an unwavering willingness to denounce the false forms of power that isolate us in algorithmic silos and blind us to our neighbors. In their place, Magnifica humanitas proposes a vision of life firmly anchored in justice, ultimately steering humanity toward the right ordering of our relationships with one another, with technology and with the Creator.”

Paolo Carozza

Notre Dame Law School professor Paolo Carozza is a member of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences and also the chair of the Meta Oversight Board. Both his research and policy work are focused on the intersection of Catholic social thought and technology, especially social media and AI.

“I am convinced that this will prove to be a defining document for our era, a profound and prophetic document,” Carozza said. “It is not just for Catholics, but speaks to the concerns of all of humanity.

“We are living in a time of daily dramatic transformations in every aspect of our lives because of AI, where the very understanding of what it means to be human is being called into question. This is coupled with a real vacuum of moral leadership on the global stage. In that context, Pope Leo is offering a clear, comprehensive and coherent voice urging us to take responsibility for constructing a world in which technology will serve humans rather than degrade them.

“From here on, I don’t think anyone will be able to speak meaningfully about the future of humanity in the age of AI without coming to terms with this document and taking it seriously. While it is very direct about the many dangers already arising out of algorithmic technologies, it is decidedly not an anti-technology document. The real question is not whether AI is good or bad, but whether the ways we develop and deploy the technology help individuals and communities become more humane, just and participatory, or whether instead they foster exclusion, control and inequality.

“The overarching core message is that if we are to preserve our humanity, we must not allow people to be reduced to mere data and commodities to be instrumentalized and exploited. It is a very hopeful document, not a doomsaying one. Pope Leo insists that moral progress here is possible, and the negative consequences of AI technologies are far from inevitable.”

Meghan Sullivan

Meghan Sullivan is the Wilsey Family College Professor of Philosophy and director of the Notre Dame Institute for Ethics and the Common Good. She leads a national research and public engagement initiative on AI and human dignity and meets regularly with tech leaders and AI developers in Silicon Valley. In March, Sullivan attended an Anthropic summit to discuss how to guide the moral development of the corporation’s chatbot, Claude.

“Magnifica humanitas is one of the most compelling and comprehensive treatments of AI ethics I have ever read — and I say that as someone who has spent the past few years immersed in this literature from both philosophical and policy perspectives,” Sullivan said. “Pope Leo XIV grounds AI ethics in the Church’s long-standing social doctrine, which has consistently offered a profound vision of human dignity.

“Christian tradition has never grounded human dignity in cognitive performance or economic productivity. It has never said: You matter because of what you can do. It says: You matter because of who you are. Someone with a body, mind and soul. Someone built for love. Someone with a mind oriented toward truth, accountable for our choices. We’re vulnerable in a way that these AI models are not. And Pope Leo argues that this special belovedness — made in God’s own image — makes us magnificent.

“What strikes me most is how practical this document is. It gives concrete guidance to corporate leaders, to policymakers, to educators, to everyday people navigating this technology. For those of us at Notre Dame, the pope’s charge to educational institutions is especially urgent. He argues that schools must resist the pressure to simply accelerate alongside the digital world and instead become irreplaceable centers of human formation — places where knowledge is integrated, where real relationships are built, where students discover the meaning of human dignity.

“This is exactly the work that Notre Dame’s DELTA network exists to do. With a generous $50.8 million grant from Lilly Endowment Inc., we are going to put this teaching on human dignity and AI into action — across K-12 schools, universities, churches and the public square. Today’s encyclical gives us both the theological framework and the moral insight we need. Notre Dame is ready to help the Church and the world answer Pope Leo’s call.”

Nitesh Chawla

Nitesh Chawla, an expert in artificial intelligence, data science and network science, is the Frank M. Freimann Professor of Computer Science and Engineering, director of the Lucy Family Institute for Data & Society and the Lucy Family Director for Data & AI Academic Strategy, leading the Notre Dame Data, AI and Computing Initiative. He uses advancements in AI, data science and network science to pursue common good through interdisciplinary research by collaborating with community and national partners.

“Magnifica humanitas makes clear that AI cannot be treated as morally neutral,” Chawla said. “Because these systems embody choices about what they measure, ignore and optimize and how they classify people and situations, they must be transparent, accountable and subject to meaningful evaluation.

“That is the work of Responsible, Inclusive, Safe and Empowering AI — RISE AI — at Notre Dame. Anchored in the Lucy Family Institute for Data & Society, RISE AI asks four practical questions: Who answers for an AI system across its lifecycle? Who is represented and served? Who is protected from harm? Who gains or loses agency? AI governance claims are only as good as the evidence chain that connects them to what the system does. RISE AI builds that chain. That chain runs through audit logs, red-teaming, subgroup performance, accessibility, redress and user-agency measures that show what a system actually does and where its limits are.

“The encyclical’s most important insistence is that moral and technical questions cannot be separated; they meet in how systems are evaluated, audited, deployed, made contestable and governed. As paragraph 109 puts it, social justice must ‘shape the very design’ of these systems from the outset, not be retrofitted after deployment. That means building AI that is not only powerful but legible, accountable and directed toward integral human development and the common good — making responsibility measurable, inclusion visible, safety testable and empowerment real.

“As Magnifica humanitas insists, responsibility must be ‘clearly defined at every stage.’”

Kathleen Sprows Cummings

Kathleen Sprows Cummings is a professor of American studies and history and director of the Global Catholic Research Initiative. A papal analyst for NBC/MSNBC, she offered expert commentary during the 2014 canonization of Popes John Paul II and John XXIII, Pope Francis’ U.S. visit in 2015, Pope Francis’ funeral in 2025 and the conclave that elected Pope Leo XIV.

“‘Age gives way to age,’ wrote Pope Leo XIII in Rerum novarum, ‘but the events of one century are wonderfully like those of another, for they are directed by the Providence of God.’ In Magnifica humanitas, an encyclical dated exactly 135 years after Rerum novarum, Pope Leo XIV also invokes God’s invisible work in history,” Cummings said. “And, like his namesake, he considers the central challenge of the age — in this case, the advent of artificial intelligence — in light of the Church’s timeless principles.

“More humble in tone than Rerum novarum, Magnifica humanitas is a far more capacious document that operates on several levels at once: an explanation of Catholic social teaching as it has developed since Rerum novarum; an affirmation of the intrinsic, God-given value of each person, which is not tied to what they achieve or produce; a rumination on the wonder and limitations of being human; a meditation on history, including an unflinching acknowledgement of the Church’s complicity in its darker moments; and an invitation to individuals and institutions to think creatively and collaboratively about how to ‘disarm’ new technologies and harness them for good.

“In his powerful conclusion, Pope Leo entrusts this endeavor to Mary, quoting from the Magnificat, her revolutionary ‘song of hope’ which glorifies the God who delivers the humble and oppressed, dislodges the privileged from their positions of power, and continues to make all things new in this and in every age. In that sense, Magnifica humanitas ultimately offers consolation to a world in desperate need of it.”

Arun Agrawal

Arun Agrawal, the Pulte Family Professor of Development Policy and director of the Just Transformations to Sustainability Initiative, studies environmental politics, sustainable development and transformative change. He has spent time with Catholic leaders discussing ways to care for our common home globally and across all disciplines and can address how AI technology is impacting the environment.

“The words ‘common good’ appear in Pope Leo’s encyclical, Magnifica humanitas, more often than the words ‘artificial intelligence’ or ‘AI,’ more often than ‘church,’ and more often than ‘religion,’” Agrawal said. “In its mention of the common good, the encyclical resonates with Pope Francis’ call for care for our common home. This continuity and this focus on the common — on the community of which we are all a part — is a characteristic feature of what it means to be human, to be part of the interconnectedness of all creation.

“Fundamentally, the encyclical is a call to heed and act for the common good. It is a call to move away from the kind of politics that advances only the fortune and interests of a select few. Increasingly, our politics pushes to the side the grandeur of humanity and promotes markets that profit the elite instead of supporting the common good.

“It prophetically recognizes that the ‘invisible hand’ of the market is in fact about the visible hand of politics that helps the marriage of finance and technology. It instead asks for our politics that would direct technology and finance and artificial intelligence to support the common good so as to achieve the grandeur of humanity. It is only by attending to this call that we have any hope of maintaining the dignity of the whole person.”

Additional Notre Dame experts on the AI encyclical and a statement from University President Rev. Robert A. Dowd, C.S.C., are available.

Contact: Carrie Gates, associate director of media relations, 574-993-9220, c.gates@nd.edu

Originally published by Notre Dame News at news.nd.edu on May 25, 2026.

“Without attending to these inner and important moral and spiritual dimensions, we will certainly struggle to achieve lasting change. This is precisely where hope becomes essential: Hope is not blind ambition or naivete but, rather, a commitment to seeing problems clearly and taking them seriously. It's about seeing the world as it is, not simply as we would like it to be."

- University of Notre Dame President, Rev. Robert A. Dowd, C.S.C.

On March 12-14, the University of Notre Dame’s Just Transformations to Sustainability (JTS) Initiative held its inaugural Sustainability Summit, Sustainability of Hope: Envisioning a New Horizon for Planetary Flourishing. The Summit, held at Notre Dame Rome, brought together over 60 sustainability scholars and leaders from around the globe to forge new and deeper partnerships, help shape the JTS Initiative’s long-term vision, and generate new collaborations focused on achieving a world in which human dignity and ecological integrity flourish together.

In his opening address, University of Notre Dame President Rev. Robert A. Dowd, C.S.C. grounded the convening within the central tenets of Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato si’ and integral ecology, a holistic approach to planetary flourishing that unites care for people with care for the planet by embracing the interconnectedness of environmental, social, and economic well-being. The panel presentations, lightning talks, and small group discussions that followed surfaced numerous key themes and priorities for Notre Dame as it strives to operationalize the principles of integral ecology through research, education and practice.

Key Themes and Takeaways

Uniting science, faith, and stewardship

The inclusion of faith and spiritual traditions within sustainability efforts provides a broader framework for understanding and repairing humanity’s relationship with the natural world, repositioning humans as stewards who exist alongside and in relation to all life. During the “Faith and Sustainability” panel, Eduardo Brondizio, Distinguished Professor at Indiana University, echoed this sentiment: despite having robust evidence and science of global and environmental change, a purely secular approach to sustainability challenges is insufficient. The lens of faith helps to translate scientific understanding into shared human values that can unite people toward collective action in caring for our common home. As Sister Alessandra Smerelli, Secretary of the Vatican's Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, shared, “[It] is not by fear, but by contemplating, being immersed in creation, recognizing the gifts we are immersed in that can give us the desire to do something different.”

Turning knowledge into action

Within sustainability efforts, a persistent gap remains between research and implementation, particularly within the institutions and communities most affected by global and environmental change. “At some point, it's not a question of how much more evidence or data we can produce. It's how we can translate these methods and this data into sustainable funding, policy support, or government action,” said Reem Hajjar, Associate Professor at Cornell University, during the “Mapping and Measuring Locally-Led Forest Stewardship” panel. Participants agreed that bridging this divide requires a shift towards transdisciplinary collaboration and equitable partnerships that prioritize not only the production of knowledge, but also its implementation into policy, practice, and locally oriented solutions.

Local roots, global reach

Rather than global “scale up” approaches, research supports that sustainable change is most effective when “scaled out” through the expansion and adaptation of successful community-led efforts across local contexts. These local initiatives become transformative when they are supported, connected, and amplified through long-term partnerships with academic institutions, practitioners, and global organizations. “Such transformations are fundamentally multi‑decade, bottom‑up exercises… built on countless local initiatives of local groups with different visions,” described William Clark, Professor at the Harvard Kennedy School, during the “Sustainability in Complex Environments” panel.

Inclusion of non-traditional actors

Meaningful transformation is not created in isolation, but rather through collaboration that is community-led, place-based, and locally tailored. These efforts require the inclusion of local and indigenous knowledge holders, practitioners, and land stewards to transform research, rooted in community values and needs, into long-term action. Abby Maxman, President and CEO of Oxfam America urges us to ask, “Whose voices are we hearing, and why? Whose are we not hearing, and why?” These questions are instrumental in creating “an even playing field to bring a system that is fairer that will lead to a healthier planet and its people.”

Looking Ahead

In the months ahead, the Just Transformations to Sustainability Initiative will continue advancing collaborative research and partnerships that reflect the principles articulated throughout the inaugural Sustainability Summit. The Initiative team looks forward to further developing the emerging research priorities surfaced at the convening, particularly regarding resilient supply chains, urban futures, and community conservation. To keep up to date with ongoing JTS research projects, please visit our Integrated Responses to Biodiversity and Climate Change and Nurturing Excellence in Sustainability pages.

In the words of JTS Director Arun Agrawal, sustainability at its core is about “flourishing” and “the promise of making the world a different and a better place.” This belief remains at the heart of the work of the JTS Initiative and Sustainability Summit, echoing the call to action shared in Laudato si’ and offering a vision of hope that can guide both institutions and individuals.

On February 2, 2023, the late Pope Francis founded the Laudato Si’ Higher Education Center to begin transforming the gardens of Villa Barberini and the Pontifical Villas into a place of training in integral ecology — a framework that seeks to care for both nature and the most vulnerable among us.

“He said, ‘Let’s create an educational center here, but also a spiritual center,’” said Rev. Daniel Groody, C.S.C., the vice president and associate provost for undergraduate education and professor of theology and global affairs at Notre Dame. “Here’s a place to encounter the beauty of nature that God has created — and a place that can facilitate an ecological conversion.”

Pope Leo XIV, who has likewise emphasized sustainability as one of his major priorities, dedicated the Borgo Laudato Si’ last fall, calling it “a seed of hope” that promises to bear the fruits of justice and peace.

As the Vatican seeks to bring Pope Francis’s vision to life, it has asked the University of Notre Dame — an institution that has also sought to enact the principles of Laudato si’ in its teaching, research, and operations — to serve as an academic partner.

Read the story

Originally published by Carrie Gates at news.nd.edu on April 22, 2026.

Pope Francis’s 2015 encyclical, Laudato si’, subtitled “On care for our common home,” inspires Notre Dame’s approach to all this work, from food waste diversion, green roofs, and renewable energy to a new global alliance for sustainability research and education in partnership with the Vatican

Whether biking to work, researching water quality, or managing campus recycling bins, every member of the Notre Dame community plays a part in our sustainability efforts. As University President Rev. Robert A. Dowd, C.S.C., recently said at Notre Dame’s sustainability summit in Rome, “Let us answer Pope Francis’s call to think boldly, to act courageously, and to work together to build a more just and sustainable world.”

Sustainability research, education, and action

In the academic core, this effort is led by the Just Transformations to Sustainability Initiative (JTS), one of several University-wide strategic initiatives that have been launched over the past two years as part of the framework. JTS brings together scholar-teachers from colleges, schools, centers, and institutes across campus with partners from around the world to advance transformative solutions for a more just and sustainable future.

Strong foundation

“Notre Dame has been engaged in sustainability research and education for many years across a wide range of disciplines, with important work already underway in many areas, from historians investigating the origins of climate change to freshwater ecology to sustainable built environments,” said John T. McGreevy, the Charles and Jill Fischer Provost. “The Just Transformations to Sustainability Initiative allows us to build on that foundation—bringing this work into closer conversation, strengthening partnerships, and extending the reach of our scholarship.”

Partnership with the Vatican

One significant development is Notre Dame’s selection as the lead university partner for the Vatican’s Laudato Si’ Center for Higher Education. In March, JTS and the center launched the Global Alliance for Laudato Si’, an international network of sustainability leaders in academia and beyond dedicated to supporting integral ecology and global sustainability.

They gathered for an inaugural meeting March 9–10 at the Laudato Si’ Village in Castel Gandolfo, the pontifical summer residence outside of Rome. Nearly 100 researchers and institutional leaders—representing more than 60 universities across Europe, Asia, the Americas, and Africa, as well as major international organizations—gathered to develop a shared research and action agenda and a long-term vision for the alliance.

“We feel that Notre Dame, a leading Catholic research university, is positioned to assist the Holy See in its objective to seek transformative change in a manner consistent with the best available science, as well as the foundational elements of integral ecology and integral human development,” said Arun Agrawal, JTS director and Pulte Family Professor of Development Policy in the Keough School of Global Affairs.

Regional and local efforts

In addition to global initiatives, JTS also strengthens regional collaboration through efforts such as the Midwest Sustainability Platform for Research and Curricular Innovation. This platform brings together leading universities across the Midwest to address region-specific challenges, including climate impacts, agricultural sustainability, and energy transitions. Through workshops and shared research agendas, participants identify opportunities for collaboration that enhance both local impact and broader systemic change.

Locally, JTS builds upon a strong foundation of existing partnerships across Notre Dame’s campus, including with several of Notre Dame’s colleges and schools and research centers and institutes such as ND Energy, the Environmental Change Initiative, and the Eck Institute for Global Health. Through its Nurturing Excellence in Sustainability program, JTS has invested in research collaborations co-produced and co-led by Notre Dame faculty and community leaders in South Bend.

Student engagement

In addition to spurring new collaborations that advance leading-edge research and knowledge creation, the initiative has created new programs aimed at cultivating and supporting a growing network of Notre Dame students dedicated to building a more just and sustainable world, both during their time at Notre Dame and through their future careers.

JTS launched a Sustainability in Action Fellowship and partnered with Notre Dame’s Institute for Educational Initiatives (IEI) and Office of Undergraduate Education to develop a week-long immersive learning course on the principles of integral ecology at Castel Gandolfo. Over spring break, faculty from the IEI traveled to Italy with a group of students to pilot the course, which explores the interconnected environmental, social, and economic dimensions of sustainability.

“The course was deeply meaningful to me, as it helped me see a clear path for integrating sustainability into both my future career and everyday life,” said Eleanor Smith, a civil engineering student who participated in the pilot. “Being in such a unique environment, reconnecting with nature and others, and engaging with the vision of Pope Francis was incredibly inspiring.”

Follow the latest developments at sustainabilityinitiative.nd.edu.

Striving toward a more sustainable campus

On the heels of Pope Francis’s encyclical Laudato si’, the University took a definitive step toward embracing integral ecology by publishing Notre Dame’s original 2016 Comprehensive Sustainability Strategy and further establishing small working groups to prioritize key focus areas of sustainability. Today, as Notre Dame celebrates a decade of impact since the strategy was first envisioned, the progress made across campus operations serves as a testament to the University’s collective commitment to care for our common home.

Operational sustainability at Notre Dame is not the work of a single office; rather, it is deeply integrated into the fabric of campus through units such as Facilities Design and Operations, Building Services, and Notre Dame Dining. By weaving sustainability into the daily functions of the University, Notre Dame has moved from high-level goals to tangible, measurable results. Reflecting on this decade of growth, four key areas stand out as pillars of operational success in our journey so far.

Decarbonization and energy transition

The University has made massive strides in campus decarbonization. Through an array of strategies—including the expansion of geothermal, the operation of the hydroelectric power plant at Seitz Park, solar arrays, and retrocommissioning buildings for efficiencies—Notre Dame has significantly reduced carbon emissions by 48 percent from the 2005 baseline.

Food waste recovery and diversion

Notre Dame recognizes the gift of food, and appreciates the intensive amount of human labor and natural resources needed to bring nourishment from the farm to the table. By implementing robust food waste diversion programs, including partnering with Cultivate Food Rescue and implementing the use of Grind2Energy systems and anaerobic digestion, the University has donated more than 453,000 meals to the surrounding community and diverted thousands of tons of organic waste from landfills.

LEED-certified buildings

Notre Dame’s physical landscape is evolving to meet the highest standards of efficiency and stewardship. While the campus footprint has grown by more than 22 percent, annual emissions have decreased by 25 percent over the past decade, thanks in part to the building standards that the Facilities Design and Operations team has established, which strive to achieve LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification. Today, the University has a portfolio of 26 LEED-certified buildings. Among many qualifying features, LEED-certified structures are designed to optimize water usage, minimize energy consumption through efficiency technologies, support human health, and reduce negative environmental impacts.

Expansion of green roofs

Across the campus skyline, a growing number of vegetative “green” roofs sit atop campus buildings. Over the past 10 years, green roofs have been established to cover 206,000 square feet of campus buildings. Green roofs—such as the expansive installation on the Joyce Center—do more than just provide aesthetic beauty from above. They have the capacity to manage stormwater runoff, reduce the urban heat island effect, support local pollinators, and provide natural insulation for the buildings.

The road ahead

Although campus sustainability efforts have come a long way, there is still much progress to be made. New climate action planning processes are underway, focusing on even more ambitious outcomes. Currently, Notre Dame Sustainability is partnering with key units across campus to continue work in campus food systems and landfill waste reduction. As the ND Sustainability team looks toward the next decade, it continues to be guided by its mission to ensure that Notre Dame remains a leader in operational sustainability.

Stay up-to-date with the latest operational sustainability news at green.nd.edu.

Originally published by Olivia Farrington & Emily Monacelli at green.nd.edu on April 24, 2026.

The University of Notre Dame’s Just Transformations to Sustainability (JTS) Initiative has partnered with the Vatican’s Laudato Si’ Center for Higher Education to establish the Global Alliance for Laudato Si’, an international network dedicated to supporting integral ecology and global sustainability. The alliance will serve as a hub for connecting, amplifying and spearheading research, curriculum and action initiatives for supporting a sustainable future, as inspired by the principles articulated by Pope Francis in his encyclical Laudato si’ (On Care for Our Common Home) and embraced and amplified by Pope Leo XIV as he begins his papacy.

The Global Alliance was created to strengthen cooperation among universities worldwide and connect sustainability leaders in academia and beyond to advance a shared vision for transformative change. Responding to Pope Francis’ call to “hear both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor,” the partners hope their combined efforts will effectively address global environmental degradation, inequality and ecological injustice.

The alliance launched with an inaugural meeting March 9-10 at the Laudato Si’ Village in Castel Gandolfo, the pontifical summer residence outside of Rome. Nearly 100 researchers and institutional leaders — representing more than 60 universities across Europe, Asia, the Americas and Africa, as well as major international organizations — gathered to develop a shared research and action agenda and a long-term vision for the alliance.

Speakers and participants stressed the need for collaboration that connects the natural and applied sciences with philosophy, anthropology, the social sciences and theology — building research networks that generate cutting-edge knowledge, inform public debate and contribute to the development of policies and strategies for sustainable development.

“We emerge from this first gathering of the Global Alliance with a renewed sense of purpose and hope,” said University of Notre Dame President Rev. Robert A. Dowd, C.S.C. “These interdisciplinary research and education initiatives reflect our commitment to an integral ecology that recognizes the deep connections between environmental sustainability and human dignity and flourishing. We look forward to the many ways this collaboration will serve the common good and advance care for our common home in the days ahead.”

Representatives from both Notre Dame and the Vatican attended the meeting at the Laudato Si’ Village, including Cardinal Fabio Baggio, director general of the Laudato Si’ Center for Higher Education, undersecretary of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development and one of the founders of the Global Alliance, and Sister Alessandra Smerilli, secretary of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development and member of the board of directors for the Laudato Si’ Center for Higher Education.

The convening will serve as a catalyst for significant positive action at the local, regional and global levels, and the insights that emerged will provide a roadmap for the alliance to follow.

“This enthusiasm must now be translated into concrete objectives through working groups that will continue beyond the conference, launching a lasting process of collaboration among research centers and institutions,” Cardinal Baggio said.

Arun Agrawal, founding director of Notre Dame’s JTS Initiative and the Pulte Family Professor of Development Policy at Notre Dame’s Keough School of Global Affairs, said Notre Dame’s research expertise and mission-driven approach to addressing environmental issues make it uniquely suited to help advance this effort.

“We feel that Notre Dame, a leading Catholic research university, is positioned to assist the Holy See in its objective to seek transformative change in a manner consistent with the best available science, as well as the foundational elements of integral ecology and integral human development,” Agrawal said.

Rev. Daniel Groody, C.S.C., vice president and associate provost for undergraduate education and professor of theology and global affairs, said that it was important for the alliance members to gather together as a global community because the issues being faced are shared. “The environment is something that affects all of us,” he said. “We can come together as a human community before God and reflect on how we can work together to preserve our common home.”

“It’s also important to see how Notre Dame can be at the service of the Church,” Father Groody added. “We can connect the research engine of Notre Dame with the research needs of the Church, especially as we’re looking at the problems of the world and helping those who are afflicted, particularly the most vulnerable members of our human community.”

Together, the Global Alliance hopes to advance three main goals: to form a global network of leaders and institutions focused on sustainability, to create thematic working groups for developing research plans and educational curricula on sustainability, and to strengthen Catholic visibility and contributions to international sustainability dialogue.

Six interdisciplinary working groups will advance the main research areas of the Global Alliance in the coming years. Their work will focus on strategic priorities that include:

• • removing barriers to access to water, energy and food security
  • transforming economic systems toward more sustainable and just models
  • developing best practices and tools to promote collective action

“There is already so much inspiring work being done all over the world,” Agrawal said, “and the goal of the Global Alliance is not to substitute for any of that work, but rather to share, to learn, to connect and to support what is already going on and to provide a space in which anyone who is interested in sustainability and integral ecology can learn from what others have done and to build on that.”

A key element of Notre Dame’s strategic framework, the JTS Initiative is the University’s far-reaching response to the urgent and cascading effects of sustainability challenges on food, energy, water and infrastructure — all of which threaten the well-being and dignity of people everywhere. The initiative brings together interdisciplinary scholars, dedicated students and action partners from around the world to advance transformative solutions for a more just and sustainable future.

“We look forward to cultivating these new relationships with other global leaders in the sustainability field and operationalizing the interdisciplinary research needed to effect this deep and lasting change in our world,” Agrawal said.

Contact: Tracy DeStazio, assistant director of media relations, 574-631-9958 or tdestazi@nd.edu

Originally published by Notre Dame News at news.nd.edu on March 13, 2026.

Read more on Vatican News

These collaboratives—including three new options co-sponsored by University-wide Strategic Framework initiatives—encourage research and creative practice across departments and disciplines to inform, influence, and inspire innovative scholarship.

Each collaborative will consist of a group of scholars pursuing a core question. The cross-disciplinary collaboratives will foster research, artistic practice, teaching, and public engagement.

The program, now in its third year, is currently accepting applications for four types of collaboratives: Humanities Collaboratives, Arts Collaboratives co-sponsored by the Notre Dame Arts Initiative; Global Catholic Research Collaboratives co-sponsored by the Global Catholic Research Initiative; and Sustainability Collaboratives co-sponsored by the Just Transformations to Sustainability Initiative. Applicants may request consideration in more than one category.

“The Humanities Collaboratives have been a core project of the newly reimagined Franco Institute, and we have been proud to expand that program by fostering interdisciplinary work linked to the strategic initiatives,” said Kate Marshall, director of the Franco Institute, associate dean for research and strategic initiatives, and the Thomas J. and Robert T. Rolfs Collegiate Chair in the Department of English. “This year we have worked closely with Arts, Global Catholic Research, and Just Transformations to Sustainability to partner on this program, creating new opportunities for faculty to participate, and in some cases to expand the global reach of their projects. It's an exciting moment for this program and the Franco Institute."

Each collaborative must be led by two principal investigators from different departments, with at least one PI holding a primary appointment in the College of Arts & Letters. Teams must also include at least three additional collaborators, who may include faculty, postdoctoral scholars, graduate students, staff, or external partners.

Projects may take many forms, including public events, performances, exhibitions, scholarly publications, digital resources, and new courses. Each collaborative will receive a $25,000 research grant per year for two consecutive years, with the possibility of renewal for a third year, along with one course release for each PI with a primary appointment in the College of Arts & Letters during the grant period. Collaboratives that partner with Notre Dame Global sites will be eligible for an additional $5,000 in research funding per year.

Proposals will be evaluated by an interdisciplinary faculty committee based on interdisciplinarity, collaboration, scholarly excellence, and impact, with special review committees convened for arts, global Catholic, and sustainability projects.

An informational webinar about the program will be held on Feb. 13. Applications are due April 1, 2026, through the Franco Institute’s Submittable portal. Funding decisions will be announced in May.

Previously funded Research Innovation Collaboratives include a wide range of topics, from Critical Approaches to Art and Technology to African Governance to Social Health Dynamics.

Originally published by Emily Monacelli at strategicframework.nd.edu on February 02, 2026.

In its first year, the Initiative launched new efforts to support crossdisciplinary sustainability research at Notre Dame, expanded opportunities for students and postdoctoral scholars, and cultivated partnerships and networks focused on long-term collaboration, both locally and globally.

“The JTS Initiative is advancing a positive vision for a sustainable future in which human dignity and ecological integrity flourish together,” said founding Director Arun Agrawal, Pulte Family Professor of Development Policy in the Keough School of Global Affairs. “In our first year, we have built a strong foundation of people, partnerships, and exciting new programs that together position Notre Dame to be a global leader in translating sustainability research and education into transformative global action.”

Through its Nurturing Excellence in Sustainability at Notre Dame Program, the JTS Initiative funded three cross-disciplinary teams of Notre Dame scholars to lead research collaborations rooted in long-term, place-based partnerships and committed to creating hands-on training opportunities for students and young researchers. In partnership with the University of Michigan’s Institute for Global Change Biology, the Initiative launched the Integrated Responses to Climate and Biodiversity Change Program and funded two interdisciplinary teams focused on synthesizing knowledge linking the biodiversity and climate change crises. The Initiative also established and hosted the inaugural convening of the Midwest Sustainability Platform for Research and Curricular Innovation, a consortium of 10 universities in the Midwest committed to addressing key sustainability challenges in the region by advancing collaborative research, driving curricular innovation, and building partnerships with policymakers, businesses, and nonprofit organizations.

In addition to spurring new collaborations that advance leading-edge research and knowledge creation, the Initiative has created new programs aimed at cultivating and supporting a growing network of Notre Dame students dedicated to building a more just and sustainable world, both during their time at Notre Dame and through their future careers. JTS launched its Sustainability in Action Fellows Program and partnered with Notre Dame’s Institute for Educational Initiatives and Office of Undergraduate Education to develop a week-long immersive learning course on the principles of integral ecology.

Finally, JTS hosted the first three seminars in the Notre Dame Seminars on Sustainability Series, a signature lecture series that brings global sustainability leaders and world-class scholars to campus for knowledge sharing and engagement with the Notre Dame community.

See more highlights from 2025

Originally published by Strategic Framework News at strategicframework.nd.edu on December 19, 2025.

More than 375 sustainability professionals gathered at the University of Notre Dame on October 20–23, 2025 for the second annual conference of the National Sustainability Society. The theme running through every session, informal conversation and keynote address was clear: a just and sustainable future requires the flourishing of both people and the planet.

“It was deeply inspiring to see our participants, representing so many diverse disciplines and sectors — come together here at Notre Dame to share knowledge and imagine new paths toward sustainability,” said Arun Agrawal, Pulte Family Professor of Development Policy and inaugural director of Notre Dame’s Just Transformations to Sustainability Initiative, who chaired the NSS conference committee.

“Hosting this gathering on our campus was an honor and a joy,” Agrawal said. “The ideas exchanged over these few days reminded us that while the challenges ahead are immense, our collective commitment, creativity and care for one another make a just and sustainable future not only possible, but already underway.”

In keynote addresses that ranged from deeply spiritual to rigorously data-driven, sustainability leaders urged audiences to close the widening gap between environmental and human well-being and to see that the same forces that are exhausting ecosystems are diminishing the people who inhabit them.

Closing the inner-outer gap

Lisa Graumlich, a dean emerita of the University of Washington’s College of the Environment and an ordained Episcopal deacon, began the conference’s opening keynote address not with charts or models, but with solemn reflection on the current ecological crisis.

“There is a gap that exists,” Graumlich said. “We are treating a dual crisis — inner and outer — as if it were only an outer, technical problem.”

A professor at Washington’s School of Environmental and Forest Sciences whose pioneering research illuminates how human activity reshapes climate systems, Graumlich wove together scientific and spiritual insights, drawing from diverse traditions including Buddhism, Christianity, eco-spirituality, Indigenous wisdom, Islam and Judaism. She also quoted Pope Francis’s environmental encyclical Laudato Si’: “The external deserts of the world are growing because the internal deserts have become so vast.”

Graumlich’s assessment of the current crisis was unsparing: the “violence of speed,” she said, has become a cultural virtue.

“Fast is good. Faster is better. But living systems require slowness to function.” She urged participants to recognize that the idea of a separation — between self and planet, science and spirit, individual and collective — is “ecologically false.”

Graumlich identified five forces maintaining what she called “the gap”: psychic numbing, the tyranny of optimism, the illusion of individual sufficiency, cultural stories that normalize harm and unprocessed grief.

“Grief is not the opposite of hope,” Graumlich said. “Numbness is. Honoring our pain for the world opens us to act more powerfully, not less.”

Graumlich called not for despair but for wholeness.

“Truth-telling and transformation must go hand in hand,” she said. “We must bring our whole selves, slow down enough to feel, refuse false solutions, and do it together.”

In her closing remarks, Graumlich issued both an assurance and a challenge. “The ‘great turning’ is already here,” she said. “The world needs you — all of you. The gap is closing, and the turning is real.”

A conversation with university deans

While Graumlich’s keynote focused on sustainability’s inner dimensions, a panel discussion with deans from the Midwest, the deep South and the West Coast examined its institutional face: how colleges and universities can cultivate a generation capable of integrating sustainability into their studies.

Moderated by Nicole Ardoin of Stanford University, the panel brought together three university deans — Patricia Culligan of Notre Dame, Joseph Messina of the University of Alabama and Christopher Boone of the University of Southern California.

Culligan, the Matthew H. McCloskey Dean of Engineering at Notre Dame, cited the College of Engineering’s mission of “engineering a better world for all.”

“A sustainable world is a world where everybody benefits,” Culligan said. “We have to frame sustainability not as a set of challenges, but as a message of hope.”

Culligan emphasized the importance of care for and education of the whole person, an approach that is often applied to undergraduate students but not as frequently extended toward graduate students — an oversight that Notre Dame Engineering is trying to remedy.

“We cannot care for the Earth well if we are not caring for ourselves,” Culligan said. “At Notre Dame, we talk about engineering a better world for all — that means creating environments where people and planet thrive together.”

Messina, a population and environment geographer, highlighted how embedding sustainability across the curriculum requires navigating political and structural realities.

“We’re at an inflection point in higher education,” he said. “If we want students to understand the importance of sustainability, we can’t just make it a requirement and risk backlash — we have to make it attractive, relevant and woven through every field of study.”

Boone, formerly at Arizona State University and now dean of U.S.C. 's Price School of Public Policy, recalled the early skepticism about sustainability as a discipline.

“When the first schools of sustainability were founded, people said students wouldn’t get jobs,” he said. “Now, employers are snapping up these students. The lesson? Doing the right thing can also be the smart thing.”

The conversation turned to the integration of artificial intelligence in sustainability education. Culligan, who previously helped found Columbia University’s Data Science Institute, described AI as “the next level in the big data world” — both transformative and unsettling.

“We can’t graduate students who don’t understand how to use AI responsibly,” she said. “Ethical grounding must be as essential as technical skill.”

When asked about research funding cuts and data restrictions, Messina warned that the loss of open data could “hobble evidence-based policy for years.” Boone added that the reliability of federal data “underpins trust in policy itself,” noting that even the U.S. Census has become politicized.

Farming for a flourishing future

While three of the nation’s deans shared strategies for institutionalizing sustainability, researcher Laura Vang Rasmussen shared a vision for applying it on the ground.

Rasmussen, an associate professor at the University of Copenhagen and lead author of the 2024 Science journal paper awarded the prestigious 2025 Frontiers Planet Prize, delivered the conference’s closing keynote. “Joint Environmental and Social Benefits from Diversified Agriculture.” Her address showcased how redesigning farming systems can simultaneously regenerate ecosystems and enhance human well-being.

“Our food systems are transgressing planetary boundaries,” Rasmussen said. “The way we produce food is driving climate change, biodiversity loss, and malnutrition. Fifty percent of the world’s calories come from just three crops — rice, maize, and wheat — and one in three people is malnourished. Something is fundamentally wrong.”

To explore solutions, Rasmussen and a team of 58 co-authors compiled data from 2,655 farms in 27 countries, from strawberry fields in California to maize plots in Malawi. The overarching research question was deceptively simple: What happens when farms diversify — when they add trees, cover crops, livestock or pollinator strips?

The results, Rasmussen said, were “extremely promising.” Farms that employed multiple diversification strategies showed joint environmental and social benefits, including higher biodiversity and better food security.

“The yield trade-offs people worry about didn’t dominate,” she said. “Livestock diversification and soil conservation were especially positive.” Farms that employed multiple diversification strategies showed joint environmental and social benefits, including higher biodiversity and better food security.”

Rasmussen recalled the story of Malawian farmers who integrated fruit trees into maize plots: mango, papaya and custard apple, among other types. The integration did not raise maize yields but improved families’ overall nutrition dramatically.

“When you measure food security through dietary diversity,” Rasmussen said, “you see how nourishment can rise even without yield gains.”

Beyond the data, Rasmussen emphasized the human networks that make transformation possible.

“In northern Malawi, more than 6,000 farmers across 200 villages are experimenting together,” she said. “It’s farmer-led, grounded in local knowledge, and built on trust. That’s where transformation begins.”

Rasmussen connected the study to the conference’s overarching theme: sustainability as the flourishing of both people and planet.

“To transform farming systems,” she said, “we need new ways of thinking and new structures — access to land, credit, training and, above all, community.”

Reflecting on the research process, Rasmussen said the enormous scale of the collaboration had seemed daunting at times.

“Bringing together all those datasets, all those disciplines — it required us to believe in one another,” she said. “Like the farmers who must be brave and resilient in the face of uncertainty, we as researchers must also be brave and resilient. That is how we make progress.”

During more than 70 parallel sessions, participants in multiple disciplines and sectors shared their work in sustainability. Topics covered in panel discussions, symposia and posters ranged from energy transitions, agricultural transformations, humanities approaches to sustainability, the role of AI in sustainability and more.

“The smaller sessions captured much of what made the conference special,” said Dan Brown, president of the National Sustainability Society and director of the School of Environmental and Forest Sciences at the University of Washington. “That’s where people discovered shared aspirations, formed new collaborations and recognized that sustainability isn’t just a professional goal — it’s a shared endeavor. The connections and community that were forged made this gathering especially meaningful.”

From the smallest conversations to the largest gatherings, the convenings at the 2025 National Sustainability Society conference formed a collective credo: caring for the people and the planet are not parallel pursuits, they are the same work — and they must be carried out in community.

Originally published by Renée LaReau at keough.nd.edu on October 28, 2025.

For Kevin Fink, sustainability is about more than building solutions to environmental challenges. It’s inherently about justice. And that’s why he sees Notre Dame as the perfect institution to lead the charge.

Fink is managing director of the University’s Just Transformations to Sustainability Initiative—a name he knows is a mouthful. But every word is important, he noted, and together they represent Notre Dame’s unique approach to sustainability, one that focuses on the intersection of the world’s economic, social, and environmental systems.

“If we could magically eliminate the issue of climate change, many of the key sustainability challenges in our world would remain: natural resource depletion, social and economic inequality, and global food insecurity, to name a few,” Fink said. “We want our work to focus on this concept of justice and all the different ways that sustainability issues in the world disproportionately affect poor and marginalized populations.

“That's why the word ‘just’ is in the title. We want to promote and advance solutions that support the earth and the environment, while also upholding the human dignity of each person.”

The word “transformations” is there, Fink said, because in order to achieve meaningful progress, we need to transform our own thoughts and actions, as well as our policies, systems, and structures from local to global levels.

“Our global systems are broken, and if we truly want to pursue just solutions, we need to be seeking transformative change,” he said. “Band-Aids aren’t going to do it. So, we talk a lot about how the core of our work is transforming how we think, act, and grow as a society. That’s why we’ve gone with this name that’s a little hard to get out—because each word keeps us moving in the right direction.”

Fink, a double Domer, has experience tackling some of the toughest global challenges. While earning his undergraduate and master’s degree in civil engineering at Notre Dame, he researched seismic resiliency—the ability of communities to withstand and recover from earthquakes—around the globe.

After completing his graduate degree, he began his career as a project engineer for the City of South Bend, where he implemented public works projects centered on neighborhood development and safety. But Fink soon felt called to return to the University and its mission.

“I've just always been drawn to the idea of connecting my professional work to helping people in need and to making a positive difference in the world,” he said. “So, I found myself drawn back to Notre Dame because of the work it was doing globally to be a force for good in some of the most marginalized and impoverished corners of the world.”

Fink joined the University’s Pulte Institute for Global Development as a project manager in 2017 and assumed the role of associate director of operations & finance for the institute in 2019. He spent seven years at Pulte, managing programs that used scientific and engineering innovations to tackle issues related to global poverty, education, health, migration, and sustainable agriculture.

After learning about the JTS Initiative, which launched in January with the hiring of Director Arun Agrawal, Fink came on board as managing director in March.

“We’re at an exciting moment right now, where we’re working on finalizing our vision and strategic plan and creating an atmosphere for the JTS team that’s focused on collaboration and growth,” Fink said. “I feel blessed to be working with Arun and some truly incredible colleagues, and I think one of the most important aspects of my role is to help cultivate an environment where every person on our team can thrive personally and professionally.”

Key priorities for the initiative include building a robust, cross-disciplinary research portfolio and developing values-based educational opportunities for Notre Dame students. The JTS team is also focused on building critical partnerships both locally and around the world.

The initiative’s Nurturing Excellence in Sustainability at Notre Dame program has awarded funding to three cross-disciplinary faculty teams leading research on pressing sustainability issues—including forest conservation in the Amazon, watershed management in the Midwest, and energy-efficient housing in South Bend.

In partnership with the Vatican, they will offer a new immersive summer abroad program in integral ecology for Notre Dame students, co-taught by Agrawal, the Pulte Family Professor of Development Policy in the Keough School of Global Affairs, and Rev. Dan Groody, C.S.C., vice president and associate provost for undergraduate education. The course will be taught at the Borgo Laudato si’, an educational center outside of Rome established by Pope Francis that demonstrates how the principles of Laudato si’ can become a reality.

And, in August, the initiative convened the first gathering of the newly established Midwest Sustainability Platform for Research and Curricular Innovation, a group of sustainability scholars and leaders from universities across the Midwest who are seeking to address sustainability problems facing the region.

For Fink, a native of Milwaukee, it has been sobering to see the ways in which the changing planet is changing lives, even in the Midwest, which is comparatively sheltered.

“As the impacts of these sustainability challenges become more amplified and more visible, it has become a really clear and easy choice to dedicate my professional life to this,” he said. “Even if the effects are minor or manageable in my lifetime, as a father, I think about what things will look like in my kids’ adult lives, and their kids’ adult lives. It just creates a sense of urgency that I think we, as a global community, need to have right now.”

Get involved

Connect with the Just Transformations to Sustainability Initiative

Learn about the Notre Dame Seminars on Sustainability Series

Meet the first three JTS research teams

Additional features

Arnie Phifer, Bioengineering & Life Sciences Initiative

Joel Day, Democracy Initiative

Angie Appleby Purcell, Ethics Initiative

Originally published by Carrie Gates at ndworks.nd.edu on October 14, 2025.

The initiative’s Nurturing Excellence in Sustainability at Notre Dame program advances efforts that grow Notre Dame’s leadership excellence in sustainability research while driving the design, testing, and scaling of solutions for a just and sustainable world. The program encourages long-term, place-based partnerships that prioritize marginalized and vulnerable communities and create hands-on training opportunities for students and young researchers.

“These three teams exemplify the vision of the Just Transformations to Sustainability Initiative by harnessing cross-disciplinary expertise, community partnerships, and innovative research to address urgent challenges from the Amazon to South Bend,” said Initiative Director Arun Agrawal, the Pulte Family Professor of Development Policy in the Keough School for Global Affairs. “Their work reflects Notre Dame’s commitment to advance transformative solutions for a more just and sustainable future.”

Examining conservation efforts in the Amazon

“Invisible Efforts, Inaudible Voices: Putting Forest Communities’ Conservation Efforts on the Map” shines a light on the often-overlooked conservation work of Indigenous and farming communities in the Peruvian Amazon. Through advanced data modeling and on-the-ground fieldwork, researchers will measure the impact of the communities’ conservation efforts on forest cover, carbon storage, and biodiversity.

Principal Investigators Krister Andersson, Professor of Sustainable Development in the Keough School of Global Affairs, and David Medvigy, associate professor of Biological Sciences, seek to understand how much of Peru’s forest survives and thrives because of local communities, and how the dignity of those community members can be better protected in future conservation efforts. Ultimately, the project will work with the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR-Peru) to investigate how forest policies can be improved by drawing on the knowledge and experience of the people who live closest to the land.

“The role of local communities in resource conservation is hotly debated right now,” Andersson said. “It is on the agendas of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Convention on Biological Diversity. Our planned research in Peru has the potential to make a timely contribution to these policy debates by providing robust new evidence on the contributions of local people to forest conservation.”

Managing water more sustainably in the Midwest

“Watershed Modeling and Community-Centered Optimization for Resilient and Sustainable Rural-Urban Water Systems” brings together scientists, engineers, and local leaders to create a shared plan for managing water more sustainably across the St. Joseph River Basin, which flows from farms and small towns to cities like South Bend before reaching Lake Michigan.

The project is led by Principal Investigators Jennifer Tank, the Ludmilla F., Stephen J., and Robert T. Galla Professor of Biological Sciences and director of the Notre Dame Environmental Change Initiative, and Alexander Dowling, the Tony and Sarah Earley Collegiate Professor of Energy and the Environment in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. Their team will partner with farmers, neighborhood groups, and municipal agencies to better understand and compare different strategies—such as wetland restoration, green infrastructure and improved stormwater systems—to meet water quantity and quality challenges facing the Midwest now, and in the future. The program is anchored by long-term partnerships with the City of South Bend, Elkhart County, and the St. Joseph River Basin Commission. By working with local communities, Notre Dame faculty, postdoctoral scholars, and student researchers will co-create solutions shaped by local knowledge, lived experience, and community priorities.

“We’re thrilled to launch this collaboration that brings rural and urban communities together around a shared goal: protecting our water and building resilience to climate threats,” Tank said. “In pairing local knowledge with cutting-edge science and technology, we hope to help communities find practical, fair, and lasting solutions for sustainable waters and watersheds in our region.”

Creating more energy-efficient homes in South Bend

“Built2Afford: From Salvage to Sustainability—Scalable Energy Retrofit Innovation” is a community-guided initiative that aims to make South Bend’s homes healthier, more affordable, and more energy efficient by developing practical, low-cost solutions that work for real people—starting with the neighborhoods that need it the most.

The project is led by Principal Investigators Ming Hu, associate professor and associate dean for research, scholarship, and creative work in the School of Architecture, and Chaoli Wang, professor of Computer Science and Engineering, with Matthew Sisk, associate professor of the practice in the Lucy Family Institute for Data & Society, serving as senior personnel. The team will develop an easy-to-use dashboard that leverages machine learning technologies and sensor data to quickly assess housing conditions and recommend accessible, effective upgrades such as insulation, better windows, or shade structures.

To ensure the tools are relevant, accessible, and rooted in the community, the team is partnering with the City of South Bend, South Bend Tradeworks, Crossroads Solar, and Habitat for Humanity to develop a Positive Energy Housing unit—a mobile, retrofitted demonstration home built from salvaged materials. The unit will travel to neighborhoods, schools, and events to show what’s possible and spark conversations about housing, energy, and sustainability. By combining advanced technology with hands-on education and strong local partnerships, Built2Afford aims to create a model that other cities can follow, bringing long-term benefits to residents, landlords, and the environment.

“This project brings together everything I care about—design, data, and justice,” Hu said. “At a time when so many communities are struggling with aging housing and rising energy costs, we have both the tools and the responsibility to act. Built2Afford isn’t just about retrofits—it’s about showing that affordable, sustainable housing and human-centered solutions are possible now, and that real change starts at the neighborhood level.”

Originally published by Emily Monacelli Guzman at strategicframework.nd.edu on September 11, 2025.

The platform brings together sustainability scholars and leaders from universities across the Midwest to address key sustainability challenges facing the region. Its goals are to advance collaborative research; drive curricular innovation; and build partnerships with policymakers, businesses, and nonprofit organizations.

“From rising energy costs, to the increased frequency and intensity of extreme heat and flooding events, to the abundant opportunities to make agricultural production and key manufacturing industries more circular and sustainable, there is tremendous potential for interdisciplinary research to benefit the region,” said Kevin Fink, managing director of the JTS Initiative. “We hope that the Midwest Sustainability Platform will be a catalyst for new collaborations between our universities that help make the region more just and more sustainable.”

The two-day convening, held on Notre Dame’s campus, included participants from Indiana University; Michigan State University; Ohio State University; Purdue University; Washington University in St. Louis, and the Universities of Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin.

Through workshops and discussions, participants worked to identify shared strengths, areas of complementarity, and actionable next steps to shape the platform’s future direction.

“Sustainability challenges in the Midwest are complex and require integrated solutions that improve social, economic, and environmental conditions,” said Elena Irwin, faculty director and co-founder of the Sustainability Institute at Ohio State University and a Distinguished University Professor of Food, Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. “Through innovative research, student programs, and regional networks, each of our universities can help drive positive change in the region, and the quality and impact of this work is greater when we work together.”

One of the University-wide research priorities identified in Notre Dame 2033: A Strategic Framework, the Just Transformations to Sustainability Initiative is inspired by Pope Francis’s landmark encyclical Laudato si’ (On Care for Our Common Home). JTS brings together interdisciplinary scholars, dedicated students, and action partners from around the world to advance transformative solutions for a more just and sustainable future.

To learn more about the Midwest Sustainability Platform and how to get involved, please contact Bethany Little at blitte6@nd.edu.

Originally published by Emily Monacelli Guzman at strategicframework.nd.edu on August 25, 2025.

Arun Agrawal, a renowned expert in sustainable development and environmental politics, joined the University of Notre Dame’s Keough School of Global Affairs in January 2025 from the University of Michigan.

A member of the National Academy of Sciences, Agrawal is the Pulte Family Professor of Development Policy in the Keough School and the inaugural director of the Just Transformations to Sustainability Initiative, a new University-wide strategic initiative for sustainability. He also is a core faculty affiliate of the Keough School’s Pulte Institute for Global Development.

In the conversation below, Agrawal discusses the key themes of his research, explains why he has found Pope Francis so inspiring, and shares what gives him hope during challenging times.

What motivates your research?

I am excited about three aspects of my research. First is its relationship to sustainability and the distinct contribution that the field of sustainability offers. People often confuse sustainability with environment and research on sustainability with that on the environment. But there are two important differences between sustainability and environment. One, sustainability is a multidimensional concept that tries to understand the relationship between the social, economic and environmental dimensions over time. How does a change in the economy affect changes in the environment or society or the other way around? How do efforts to pursue some societal goal also affect the environment and the economy? And to what extent do different social, economic and biophysical processes simultaneously unfold in relation to each other?

The second difference is that environmental research often focuses on how things are and why they are that way. Sustainability researchers, in contrast, also often ask not only what is, but also what should be. So there is a strong normative component that may not always be missing from environmental research, but that is typically not a necessary focus or interest of those who do research on the environment.

This emphasis on thinking through what to do about what is happening is a key part of the motivation that led me to work on sustainability science and sustainability.

The second idea I’m excited about is transformative change. Over the last three years, I’ve been co-chairing a global assessment of transformative change for a more just and sustainable world. Although it may appear that the current political climate is not one that is open to this concern, it’s critical to remember that the kinds of disasters and changes and unsustainable trajectories that we are undergoing are not going to wait for policymakers or decision-makers to take action. The world is changing, and will continue to change, and these changes will hit us with particular viciousness the longer we wait to do anything about them.

Thus, one may think that the most important thing right now is whether gas at the gas station sells for $4.00 dollars a gallon or for $2.50 a gallon. But if our leaders don't address the long-term sustainability challenges that we are facing, this question will turn out to have been minor. So, I feel this issue of how to work towards a world that is more just and sustainable than the one we have and one towards which we are currently headed is essential. It is especially important for our universities and for those of us who care about the extraordinary levels of deprivation and destitution that exist in the world and for those who want to do something about it.

The third thing, which is more on a personal level is the importance of what I have now come to call commoning following a growing literature on the subject. Commoning is when people work together to achieve shared goals, to achieve shared purpose. Often the way social scientists think about working together is that it is very costly because it takes time and may lead you to do things that you wouldn't do if you're only acting in your self-interest. But there is substantial evidence that shows working with others is rewarding; that doing things with others is what really gives a life meaning. We are social beings and we find fulfillment in connecting with others. This is a recognition that what we are doing is more than simply pursuing money or power.

Commoning is particularly relevant to sustainability and transformative change because it allows us to think about how we can work together not just as part of a government or corporation or with the goal of accumulating more power and wealth. It helps us think about how what we do is also a way to realize a deeper purpose and meaning.

Working together with others is especially consistent with both Notre Dame as a university and Catholic social teaching about what it means to be human. When Pope Francis talked about sustainability, he talked about care for a common home. The idea of commoning is central to thinking about sustainability and also to Pope Francis's views about integral ecology – about the intertwined fate of humanity and the environment.

What does “commoning” look like in an academic environment?

Research on the commons goes back to the 1950s and 1960s. This research is mostly focused on small-scale natural resource systems on which people depend, on how the commons can be important sources of benefits to people. Research on commoning began to pick up steam around 2010. This research  focuses more on contemporary issues of urbanization, climate adaptation, renewable energy systems, waste management and grassroots social movements, among others. In much of this work, researchers seek to understand why and when people “common” (as a verb). Why is it and how is it that we achieve commoning? Among characteristics of commoning are open engagement; reciprocity; equity in participation and shared purpose. Although it’s a relatively recent idea, there are now more than 1,000 studies on the idea of commoning.

The process of commoning differs from collective action or collective cooperation. Those who work on commoning see it as influencing who you are. So it is not as if one comes to this collaborative process, collaborates, and then ends that collaboration being just the same person as one was before the collaboration started. Commoning highlights the idea that when you engage in collaboration, when you work with others, you undergo a change in who you are. And that understanding of how you undergo change through the collaborative and commoning process is not part of how most scholars of collective action or cooperation think about cooperation and collective action. They see the cooperation in collective action as essentially something that one engages to achieve a goal but without undergoing any change in how one views or defines oneself. This is a major shift in how researchers of commoning view their process of interest as being different from how those studying collective action and cooperation see them.

What makes change transformative? What sort of working definition do you use?

I think Pope Francis said it very well. He talks about sustainability requiring transformation in thoughts, structures and actions. I think that way of understanding transformative change is essentially what integral human development is about because it talks about transformation of the whole person, both in terms of how they think, how they feel, and how they understand the world and what they do in it. And Pope Francis talked about structures, which are the conditions under which people both think and do. So, transformation leads not only to shifts in thinking and in your actions, but also to changes in structures within which one is thinking and doing. This is the understanding of transformative change that Pope Francis articulated in his encyclical Laudato Sí. It is also the understanding of transformative change upon which we arrived as part of our work on the Transformative Change Assessment after three years of collaborative work.

Transformative change is about an integral change; it's about more comprehensive shifts in how people think and do; feel and act; and are regulated or connected. But the emphasis on the person and on individuals and their inner lives is really important in thinking about transformative change. Other words for change or other types of change tend not to focus on this integral nature of change that transformative signifies. It's this connection between social changes and inner change that's really important for transformative change.

How does your research fit in with what is happening in the world today?

Everywhere around us there is evidence of the planet undergoing changes for which our current political systems don't have an answer. Consider sea level rise. It is not going to stop at the borders of the United States. It is going to affect us in ways that some people have begun to think about, but in other places, our leaders have said, it’s not necessary to talk about sea levels. They have denied climate change is happening. They have denied the existence of climate change.

The short-term focus we adopt to defer action on issues that are going to have immense effects in our world will not make those issues go away. Banning words does not magically make issues disappear. We must see the world as it is, not the way we would like it to be — and there are aspects of the world that power exercised by the government or by corporations or or by individuals acting on their own will not change. We need action that translates our best understanding and knowledge about the world into effective strategies to deal with the kinds of disasters that are happening and will continue to happen. Drawing people's attention away from real problems through short-term solutions will not fix the problems we must confront.

Could you share an anecdote that shows how you find meaning in your work?

I remember when the COVID outbreaks coincided with a whole slew of student-led protests addressing climate change all over the world. I think these protests brought home with special clarity how our youth see what is going on, and how they see ongoing changes and catastrophes much more clearly than older adults, and even than many leaders and politicians do. There was one particular march that the Sunrise Movement had planned throughout the U.S., and then because of COVID shutdowns most movement members agreed that they shouldn't organize in-person matches. Within a week, the Sunrise Movement pivoted and organized online classes to teach high school students about climate change, attracting thousands of students across the U.S. to these online classes. And these were young people, teenagers – 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 years old. They felt the urgency of the moment really deeply in their hearts. While adults may have more resources, more knowledge, more money, the children — it turns out — were more able to do what was needed because they understood the importance of action. Seeing their action pivot motivated and convinced me to be involved in something that can support action for change in addition to research.

That's one reason why I find the Just Transformations to Sustainability Initiative to be attractive. It promises to connect research and curricular innovation with action and change in the world.

What is giving you hope right now?

I am reminded of T. S. Eliot’s words, “do not hope, for hope will be hope for the wrong thing.” But it is all too human to have hope. And love. And faith. Waiting without hope or love or faith is difficult for those in touch with their humanity. I think for hope one has to shift one's focus away from what is in the mainstream public discourse. If one pays too much attention to the news and to what is happening every day, and one also cares about sustainability and transformative change, there’s a great mismatch between what one wants and what is going on. In the United States, one has to shift attention from the national level to the state and local and municipal levels and even to the international arena.

I feel hope in the conversations I have with people who are interested in bringing about change. If anything, many of them are more energized and more committed than ever. They have greater intensity and greater purpose and the conviction that without changes in a different direction — directions that favor those who are marginalized and who do not have a voice — we are all going to be worse off.

I think both of these ideas – that one can accomplish things that are immediate in both the temporal and spatial dimensions, and that the number of people who want to walk on the same journey — are really important sources of hope. And not just of hope, but also for renewal and inspiration.

Originally published by Renée LaReau at keough.nd.edu on April 24, 2025.

In this interview, Agrawal discusses what animates his research and what drew him to Notre Dame and the Keough School.

What excites you most about the opportunity to lead the Just Transformations to Sustainability Initiative at Notre Dame? Why is this the right position for you at this moment in your career?

When I thought about the opportunity to lead this initiative, I could not help asking myself what I am called upon to do at this time in my life. I could continue to do sustainability research with as much passion and intellectual energy as possible. I could continue to pursue engagement-focused initiatives such as the National Sustainability Society that we launched this year with an inaugural meeting in Seattle. And I could keep building on the curricular efforts around sustainability and development in which I am engaged. But the opportunity Notre Dame presents — to me and to higher education institutions in sustainability — is special. The Sustainability Initiative seemed to be the perfect integrative design for the triptych of research, curriculum and engagement that real-world impact by any university requires.

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. Why is it important to approach sustainability as a University-wide strategic priority?

The challenges of climate change, biodiversity loss, growing inequality, overconsumption, pollution and waste, among others, represent a polycrisis in which we are entangled. These intertwined challenges threaten to swallow the progress we have made in improving our material possessions, quality of life and greater life expectancy. The average levels of improvements of course hide great variations. They also obscure the enormous subsidy from nature that has made the advances possible.

Transformative change, both governments and scholars agree, is necessary for a just and sustainable world. It requires incisive discipline- and field-specific research innovations. At the same time, it also requires synthesis across these domains. As Pope Francis reminds us, change, to be truly transformative, must occur in "thought, structure, and action." Connecting these shifts, such that they engage the sustainability challenges of today and tomorrow, can only happen with the active involvement of all our schools and colleges.

What initially inspired you to focus on sustainability in your research and teaching, and what has compelled you to continue?

As with many things in life, my initial focus was not as precisely on the things that motivate me today. I came to sustainability through the idea of commons and commoning. The question of how we can work together to achieve shared purpose is the central puzzle that animates work on commons (with respect to social-ecological systems) and commoning (with respect to much of life). This is also a question that we must answer, both individually and collectively, if we are to find meaning in what we do, indeed, if we wish to realize our humanity in our lives. This question continues to provoke me in my research and in everyday life. It is not an exaggeration to say that to answer this question with care and thought is simultaneously to advance towards transformative change for a just and sustainable world.

I must credit my mentors who inspired me and supported me in so many ways. Mentioning names is often risky, but I would be remiss if I did not express my gratitude to Professor Anil Gupta at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, Professors Margaret McKean and Elinor Ostrom at Duke University and Indiana University, Professors Robert Bates and Peter Lange at Duke University, and Professor James Scott at Yale University. Their work, their accomplishments, and their faith in me has touched all of my work.

What are the current trends and challenges driving the need for sustainability research? And why is it important for a university like Notre Dame and a school like the Keough School to play a role in and prioritize this work?

I have already mentioned the challenges that make work on sustainability perhaps the most important need (and perhaps also the most important opportunity) of our time. It is particularly important for us to think about how to address inequality. We are often slow to appreciate the negative, corrosive effects of increasing inequalities, but they are like a slowly spreading epidemic that, if unaddressed, undermines peace, stability, well-being and community — all of which are necessary for growth in happiness and for well-functioning societies. Sustainability centers attention toward equity and justice, together with environment and well-being. It calls on us to pursue a balance among these aspirations and goals over time.

As for why Notre Dame and why the Keough School, I can do little better than to quote the legendary civil rights activist John Lewis who asked, "If not us, then who, if not now, then when?"

The Keough School and each of its core research programs are focused on interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary scholarship. How does this approach align with your current work, and how does it contribute to advancing the field of sustainability?

I trained as a political scientist for my Ph.D. It is admittedly difficult to escape one's acculturation in the academy. But I am also trained in management and business, history, and the interdisciplinary fields of institutional theory, social criticism, commons and commoning, and sustainability science. In many ways, being concerned about what is happening around us is to have at least an orientation toward interdisciplinary work because societal problems have no disciplinary boundaries.

In this sense, I am convinced that interdisciplinary work that connects insights across the different sciences is absolutely essential for solving the problems that ail us. Sustainability not only requires interdisciplinarity, it is also centrally animated by the goal of making a difference in the world. Sustainability scientists ask and answer questions that are about synthesis across the ecological, social and economic sciences and that are geared toward figuring out the role of policy and implementation sciences for transformative change. Thus the Keough School, with its focus on interdisciplinary work and global affairs, is extraordinarily well-positioned to achieve scientific breakthrough, and to advance sustainability in the world.

Originally published by Renée LaReau at keough.nd.edu on October 29, 2024.

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.

Originally published by Kate Garry at news.nd.edu on October 29, 2024.