Trailblazing sociologist Gilberto Cárdenas — revered leader in the Chicano movement and prodigious collector of Latino art — died Sunday at his Austin home. He was 79.
Our Experts in the News
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CNBC
No evidence of productivity boom or large labor disruption from AI: Notre Dame’s Melissa Kearney
August 05, 2026
Melissa Kearney, Aspen Economic Strategy Group director and University of Notre Dame professor of economics, joins ‘Squawk Box’ to discuss AI’s impact on the current labor market and more.
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OPINION | The War China Might Choose
August 04, 2026
By Eugene Gholz, Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Notre Dame, and Kerby Davis, a Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.
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Los Angeles Times
Gilberto Cárdenas, revered for his advocacy for Chicanos and Latino art, dies at 79
July 31, 2026
Gilberto Cárdenas, a highly respected sociologist and advocate for advancing Latino and Chicano identity through academia and art, has died. Cárdenas died Sunday at his home in Austin, Texas, after a long illness, according to a statement released by his family. He was 79.
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The Conversation
Why ‘democratic neutrality’ is an overlooked threat to American democracy
July 28, 2026
By Matthew Hall, Professor of Constitutional Studies, Political Science and Law, University of Notre Dame; Brittany Solomon, Assistant Professor of Administrative Leadership Management and Organization, University of Notre Dame; and Tyler Leigh, Research Fellow, Rooney Center for the Study of American Democracy, University of Notre Dame.
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Aron Barbey, University of Notre Dame - Intelligence Emerges When the Whole Brain Works As One
July 28, 2026
We are redefining our view of human intelligence. Aron Barbey, the Andrew J. McKenna Family Professor of Psychology at the University of Notre Dame, looks at how our brain organizes information to do so. Barbey is also the director of the University of Notre Dame Human Neuroimaging Center and the Decision Neuroscience Laboratory.
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WVPE
ND hosts open house for new Veldman Family psych clinic
July 24, 2026
The University of Notre Dame recently opened its Veldman Family Psychology Clinic in South Bend’s East Bank area. They’re inviting the public to an open house on Friday from 2:30 to 5 p.m. Amanda Zelechoski is the clinic’s director of clinical services.
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NPR
These Catholic sisters want to start an order for clergy abuse survivors
July 22, 2026
University of Notre Dame historian Kathleen Cummings says religious sisters have dedicated their lives for centuries to helping vulnerable people. They've served everywhere from battlefields to inner city schools. "What we're seeing here is really just a modern manifestation of that, a group of women who recognize a need in the church and want to dedicate their lives to fulfilling it, and to not do that part-time, to make that their entire life."
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The Wall Street Journal
Pastors Using AI to Help Write Sermons Grapple With Where to Draw the Line
July 19, 2026
Meghan Sullivan, a University of Notre Dame professor of philosophy who is leading a research project on AI and religion, said that using AI to draft anything spoken in worship reflects a basic misunderstanding of what Christians believe is happening when a preacher delivers a homily. Churches, in her view, might be among the last institutions where people are asked to sit still, in silence, and encounter another human being without mediation. “Martin Luther is rolling over in his grave,” she said, at the idea of handing scripture off to what she calls a theological software middleman.
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The New York Times
Hong Kong Police Raid Independent Bookstores and Arrest 5 People
July 16, 2026
“Independent bookstores are among the few remaining spaces where people can encounter ideas, build social ties and sustain an intellectual public,” said Victoria Hui, an associate professor specializing in Chinese politics at the University of Notre Dame.
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Marketplace
Return to U.S.-Iran war is likely to change inflation expectations
July 15, 2026
To prevent that inflationary cycle, Christiane Baumeister, an economics professor at the University of Notre Dame, said she thinks the Federal Reserve should be raising interest rates.
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Testosterone, fatherhood, and what it means for masculinity
July 13, 2026
When I was researching my new book, “Dad Brain: The New Science of Fatherhood and How it Shapes Men’s Lives”, I talked to Lee Gettler, a researcher at the University of Notre Dame who has conducted some of the best longitudinal studies of testosterone and fatherhood.
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Time
Religion’s Longstanding Gender Gap Is Narrowing Among Gen Z. But Which Gender Is Narrowing It—and Why?
July 13, 2026
Gallup did also ask about attendance at religious services, and found that the share of young men who say they attend religious services at least once a month increased by seven percentage points in the span of two years, making them statistically tied in that metric with their female counterparts in the poll’s findings. But David Campbell, a professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame, points out that other surveys that measure weekly attendance haven’t shown the same spike among young men.
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The New Yorker
Are Dads Getting Better?
July 07, 2026
The anthropologist Lee Gettler speculates that “low-T” fatherhood is basically an adaptation to circumstances: when new dads are immersed in the work of parenting—bathing infants and changing their diapers, or helping older kids navigate the emotional complexities of middle school—it simply doesn’t make sense for them to be “hormonally focused on competition and aggression.”
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Elon Musk says 'birth rates drop as countries get wealthier' — the economy isn't why US birth rates decline, 'poorer' countries have more kids
July 06, 2026
Melissa Kearney, an economist at the University of Notre Dame, told NPR that if the U.S. experiences both low fertility and lower immigration, the country "will have to take meaningful steps to invest in all the things that will make us more productive with fewer working-age people."
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U.S. News & World Report
Think You Can’t Afford to Retire? You Might Be Missing Two Massive Piles of Money
July 06, 2026
“People have a lot of doom and gloom about Social Security, but I don’t,” says Jeffrey Campbell, an economics professor at the University of Notre Dame. He believes much of the talk about the program running out of money is overblown and doesn’t think older Americans should worry about Social Security benefits being reduced. That’s good news for retirees who stand to collect hundreds of thousands of dollars from the program.
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Ukraine’s controversial recruitment drive: Why prisoners are being sent to war
July 01, 2026
"I think it's highly unlikely that it's going to make a dent in the Ukrainian mobilization needs," said Michael Desch, professor of international relations at the University of Notre Dame. "As your reporter pointed out, there are about 1,500 women in Ukrainian prisons, the majority of whom don't qualify for this particular program, and the needs of the Ukrainian ground forces for troops is much greater than that. They need to be recruiting at least 30,000 troops every month and they're not meeting those quotas." (Interview begins at 4:35)
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I Traced the Hormuz Crisis Back 4,000 Years. Here's What I Found.
July 01, 2026
"The cost of insurance is basically proportional to the hazard, to how how big the impact of the bad luck outcome would be, plus a normal rate of profit in the insurance industry, which is affected by the competitive dynamics of the insurance industry," said Eugene Gholz, associate professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame. "If the probability approaches one hundred percent that your ship is going to sink, then the cost of insurance approaches the cost of a new ship. And that would be prohibitive." (Interview begins at 36:00)
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WSBT TV
Experts address importance of youth mental health in community at summit
June 24, 2026
"I think that there's a crisis of mental health all across the country, and our county really is no different in that many youth are seeking support and are unable to access support. And so part of what we're brainstorming together today is the ways that we can meet teens where they are, try to address unmet needs, and think of ways that we can work together to have more seamless partnerships," said Kristin Valentino, director of Veldman Family Psychology Clinic.
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Financial Times
Why birth rates are falling everywhere all at once
June 23, 2026
Melissa Kearney, professor of economics at the University of Notre Dame, says it is “quite plausible that the modern digital media environment has had profound effects on society that have led to a decline in romantic coupling”.