Three recent graduates from the Peace Studies Ph.D. program at the University of Notre Dame have secured strong academic placements at universities across the country.
The Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, part of the Keough School of Global Affairs, partners with departments in Notre Dame’s College of Arts and Letters to offer six distinct but related doctoral degrees. Because each is a dual degree in a traditional discipline and peace studies, Kroc Institute Ph.D. graduates are equipped for academic jobs in a wide range of areas.
“Our students gain critical interdisciplinary perspectives during their time in the program, and their ability to speak across intellectual boundaries has served them extremely well in the job market,” said Catherine Bolten, Kroc Institute director of doctoral studies. “They stand out because of the ease with which they can think, speak, and teach across disciplines.”
Heather DuBois has accepted a position as Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Stonehill College in Easton, Massachusetts. DuBois graduated from Notre Dame in 2018 with a Ph.D. in peace studies and theology. Her position at Stonehill will focus on Catholic theology and social justice, which intersects nicely with her interdisciplinary doctoral studies.
“The Kroc Institute emphasis on praxis, combined with my previous career in the NGO sector, enables me to teach at this intersection in accessible and provocative ways,” said DuBois. “I am delighted to join a community of smart, caring people at Stonehill who are dedicated to the liberal arts mission of broad and deep inquiry.”
Prior to joining the Stonehill faculty, DuBois was a Gannon Post-Doctoral Fellow in Religion, Ethics and Philosophy at Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida.
Kyle Lambelet has accepted a position as Assistant Professor in the Practice of Theology and Ethics at Emory University’s Candler School of Theology in Atlanta, Georgia. Lambelet has been a postdoctoral fellow at Candler since his graduation in 2017 with a Ph.D. in peace studies and theology.
“My formation at Notre Dame was indispensable for the work I'm doing now at Emory,” says Lambelet. “Because of the joint degree program at Notre Dame, I can draw on an interdisciplinary set of literatures and methods to engage tough ethical, political, and theological problems. And I love that I'm able to integrate the diverse parts of my scholarly vocation in my work at Candler.”
Lambelet has also published his first book in spring 2020, a revised version of his Notre Dame dissertation entitled, ¡Presente! Nonviolent Politics and the Resurrection of the Dead (Georgetown University Press). The book draws on an in-depth case study of the movement to close the School of the Americas to develop a lived theology of nonviolence.
“My hope is that the book will follow the example of the activists that I studied and ‘cross the lines’ that separate practice and theory as well as disciplines,” said Lambelet.
Angela Lederach, a 2019 graduate in peace studies and anthropology, has accepted a position as Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology in the Department of Cultural and Social Studies at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska.
The position places a high level of emphasis on community-based research and engagement and will allow Lederach to continue to teach and research at the intersection of political and environmental anthropology. She will also be teaching in an interdisciplinary department that blends studies in anthropology and justice and peace studies.
“While peace studies and environmental studies are often treated as separate, ethnographic research and the lived experiences of the campesino leaders in Colombia with whom I work required an understanding of peace and environment as inextricably linked,” said Lederach. “My ability to bring these dimensions of what I call ‘slow peace’ together are significant as I begin a position in cultural anthropology that places emphasis on food studies, environmental justice, and political anthropology. Rather than limit my examination of these intersections, the interdisciplinary field of peace studies combined with the integrative training in anthropology found at Notre Dame encouraged and expanded my research and teaching.”
Learn more about the Peace Studies Ph.D. program at kroc.nd.edu/phd.