Graduate Molly Hayes awarded George Mitchell Scholarship

Molly Hayes, a 2008 graduate of the University of Notre Dame’s School of Arts and Letters, has been awarded a 2014 George Mitchell Scholarship.

Awarded to only twelve individuals each and every year, the George Mitchell Scholarship is sponsored by the US-Ireland Alliance. The nationally aggressive award is named soon after the former U.S. Sen. George Mitchell, who played an crucial role in the Northern Ireland peace procedure. The scholarship is created to connect long term American leaders with Ireland, and gives tuition, accommodations, and living and travel stipends.

Hayes, who studied English and Arabic even though at Notre Dame, will use the Mitchell Scholarship to pursue a master’s degree in Irish literature at the Nationwide University of Ireland, Maynooth.

Hayes is currently the Kenya Desk Officer at the U.S. Department of State, the place she led the Washington-primarily based crisis response management for the September terrorist attack at Westgate Mall in Nairobi. Even though an undergraduate at Notre Dame in 2008, she co-founded the ND-ABROAD initiative, which aims to market safety and dignity abroad through schooling in accurate cultural sensitivity. Hayes also was a portion of restructuring Notre Dame’s orientation and re-entry programs, and she produced a documentary on sexual assault and gender issues. She designed a University Counseling Center assistance group for college students who knowledgeable trauma although abroad.

Hayes is the 1st Mitchell Scholar from Notre Dame since 2007.

Hayes’ Mitchell Scholarship was made achievable in element through his participation in Notre Dame’s Center for Undergraduate Scholarly Engagement (CUSE). CUSE provides undergraduate students in all the University’s schools opportunities for analysis, scholarship, and imaginative projects. The center also assists them in finding faculty mentors, funding and venues for the publication or presentation of their perform, and promotes applications to national Fellowship applications and prepares them in their application procedure.

Much more details on CUSE is accessible online at cuse.nd.edu.

Graduate Molly Hayes awarded George Mitchell Scholarship

Psychologist Kristin Valentino awarded federal grant for preschooler intervention program

Kristin Valentino

The preschool years are the most formative for younger brains. University of Notre Dame psychologist Kristin Valentino sees the two the promise and vulnerability of kids at this stage of existence.

That’s why Valentino, the William J. Shaw Center for Children and Households Assistant Professor of Psychology, produced an intervention program developed to enhance communication among mothers and maltreated preschoolers and, in the long run, lead to happier, healthier families.

First trials proved so efficient that Valentino was not too long ago awarded a $ 3 million grant from the Eunice K. Shriver National Institute of Youngster Wellness and Human Improvement to proceed the task.

“This operate has the potential to advance scientific understanding and boost policy efforts to improve the welfare of maltreated young children and their households,” Valentino stated. It also has the possible to impact the local local community in a much more instant way, she noted.

Titled “Fostering Healthy Advancement Amongst Maltreated Preschool-Aged Children,” Valentino’s project evaluates a plan to help dad and mom and youngsters understand successful communication strategies.

“The intervention involves 6 weekly house-primarily based sessions centered on improving mom-youngster communication and emotional assistance,” Valentino said. “We hypothesize that enhancements in mom-youngster communication will lead to improvements in youngster cognitive, emotional and physiological domains. We also hypothesize that the intervention will lead to improvements in maternal parenting and sensitivity, and decreased re-involvement with the Department of Little one Companies (DCS).”

Valentino produced a manual and employs four household coaches who operate with nearby families and report back to her.

“My family coaches are educated on the intervention and have a whole lot of expertise working with at-risk households. They’re also really familiar with the neighborhood,” she mentioned. “Several of the families are doing work with DCS presently. The department has been referring families who seem to be rather fired up about the project.”

The perform can be challenging, but the prospective for good results inspires Valentino to pursue her analysis.

“I come to feel genuinely passionate about making an attempt to use science to enhance the lives of maltreated young children and families,” she stated. “These households are some of the nation’s most vulnerable, so I actually hope to produce practical intervention packages that can enhance the trajectories of these youngsters.”

More than the course of her study, Notre Dame and the College of Arts and Letters have proved an invaluable supply of support for Valentino. “The pilot research I performed presented the justification to apply for this grant, and Notre Dame’s Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts supplied help for the pilot analysis,” she stated. “I have also obtained truly outstanding mentoring from some of my senior colleagues.”

The $ three million grant will fund Valentino’s work via the next five many years.

“It’s rather massive,” she explained. “I was thrilled to have the opportunity to conduct this variety of research.”

Originally published by Eileen Lynch at al.nd.edu on Nov. 15, 2013.

Psychologist Kristin Valentino awarded federal grant for preschooler intervention program

NDIGD awarded contract to evaluate water project in Ghana

The University of Notre Dame Initiative for Global Advancement (NDIGD) was lately awarded a $ 375,000 contract from the Millennium Challenge Corp. (MCC) to perform an evaluation of MCC’s water venture in Ghana.

In 2006, MCC signed a 5-year, $ 547 million compact with the Republic of Ghana aimed at decreasing poverty by way of agribusiness advancement. The University of Notre Dame will help evaluate the advantages of the water element of that venture, which was made to supply water methods to communities in Ghana. 3 hundred ninety-two water points had been constructed, including boreholes, small town water methods and pipe extensions.

The evaluation will help establish no matter whether strengthening water techniques in participating districts has decreased the prevalence of sickness — notably diarrhea — and created health enhancements, and regardless of whether beneficiary productivity and incomes have elevated with the availability of greater water. Some 137 selected communities in the intervention locations are benefiting from the enhanced water techniques.

NDIGD will perform with MCC to assess the water action of these enhanced water techniques, integrating a survey and information assortment to synthesize outcomes of the task. NDIGD’s preceding experience in utilizing rigorous research methods to acquire data from communities will be beneficial in creating and executing the evaluation.

The study team contains Edwin Michael, professor of biological sciences and a member of Notre Dame’s Eck Institute for Worldwide Well being. “We are excited about investigating regardless of whether the model utilized for the water intervention has led to improved well being outcomes, specifically in the case of diarrhea, which continues to be a top result in of death between the creating world’s young children,” Michael explained.

NDIGD monitoring and evaluation specialists Lila Khatiwada and Juan Carlos Guzman will travel to Ghana in December to develop the layout for the survey and information assortment that will be implemented in 2014. “We are collaborating with several specialists in Ghana to assist in offering nearby skills and knowledge as we design the review and carry out the evaluation,” Khatiwada mentioned.

Economics professor Joseph Kaboski will offer input into the design of the evaluation and help in analyzing the information. Other researchers on the project, like ND-Achieve investigation fellow Chen Chen and Andres Martinez, information management consultant for the Center for Social Analysis, also serve as portion of the analysis staff.

“Notre Dame is most grateful to be in a position to spouse with the Millennium Challenge Corp. on this possibly transformative task in Ghana,” said University of Notre Dame Provost Thomas Burish. “Splendid faculty from a number of distinct disciplines, working via Notre Dame’s Initiative for International Development, will contribute to several applied analysis tasks that will advantage not only communities in Ghana but also several other individuals worldwide.”

A United States foreign support agency developed by Congress in January 2004, the Millennium Challenge Corp. is committed to providing wise U.S. foreign help by focusing on great policies, nation ownership and confirmed outcomes.

Make contact with: Michael Sweikar, NDIGD managing director, msweikar@nd.edu

NDIGD awarded contract to evaluate water project in Ghana