The University of Notre Dame’s Kroc Institute is pleased to announce its doctoral candidates seeking academic appointments. The Kroc Institute's Ph.D. Program in Peace Studies was established in 2008. The program offers six distinct degrees in anthropology and peace studies, history and peace studies, political science and peace studies, sociology and peace studies, psychology and peace studies, and theology and peace studies. Students are trained in research methods associated with one of five disciplines and also immersed in interdisciplinary peace research.
The following students have defended their dissertations recently and are fully credentialed in both their primary discipline as well as in interdisciplinary peace research:
Jessica Brandwein
Political Science & Peace Studies
Jessica was a University Presidential Fellow specializing in international relations, comparative politics, and peace studies. Her research focuses on the causes and consequences of state-sponsored political violence, international interventions, and transitional justice.
Dissertation: Threat, Risk, and Repression: Exploring Political Violence from a Prospect Theory Approach
Visit Jessica's website »
Ryne Clos
History & Peace Studies
Ryne Clos was a Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow at Notre Dame's Center for the Study of Language and Culture, where he teaches English language courses while working on his book manuscript. His research is focused on modern Central America, where he investigates the development of liberation theology and the various ways in which violence is structured into everyday life. His teaching and research emphasize culture and how it shapes political systems and citizens' response to the state.
Dissertation: A Long Road to Canaan: Capuchin Missionaries and the Delegates of the Word in Nicaragua’s Long Sixties
Kyle Lambelet
Theology & Peace Studies
Kyle Lambelet, Ph.D. is a Kroc Excellence Fellow and Mullen Family Fellow. He is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at Emory University's Candler School of Theology. His research and teaching focuses on the intersections of religion, ethics, conflict, and peace with particular attention to the ethics and theology of nonviolence. His dissertation "¡Presente! Political Theology at the Gates of Ft. Benning" examines the lived theology of nonviolence of the School of the Americas Watch.
Dissertation: ¡Presente! Political Theology at the Gates of Ft. Benning
Shinku “James” Lee
Political Science & Peace Studies
James is a University Presidential Fellow, Mullen Family Fellow, and Kroc Dissertation Fellow. His research focuses on the intersection of political theory and international politics. James’s dissertation analyzed Hannah Arendt’s view on political associations and its implications for international conflict and peace. For future projects, he envisions extending Arendtian insights to the East Asian context of peacebuilding, as well as to the role of religion in political reconciliation.
Dissertation: Communities of War and Peace: Arendt, Political Association, and International Relations
Karie Cross Riddle
Political Science & Peace Studies
Karie a Mullen Family Fellow and postdoctoral fellow in Peace Studies and Political science, specializing in political theory and comparative politics. Her research looks at the fruitful nexus between women's peacebuilding practices in Northeastern India and two bodies of Western feminist theory-- liberal and critical feminism.
Dissertation: Defining Critical Feminist Justpeace: Women's Peacebuilding Praxis and Feminist Political Thought
These students are in their final phase of dissertation writing and are also currently on the academic job market:
Francis Bonenfant-Juwong
History & Peace Studies
Francis is a Ph.D. candidate in History and Peace Studies specializing in the history of the United States in the World, development as peacebuilding in the Middle East, and the legacies of colonialism. His current research, spanning archives in the United States, United Kingdom, and Israel, explores British and American development praxis among Arab Palestinians from the 1930s through the 1960s.
Dissertation: Ever-Widening Circles: U.S. Private Voluntary Development in Palestine/Israel and Jordan, 1930-1967
Matthew Chandler
Sociology & Peace Studies
Matt is a Kroc Excellence Fellow and a Mullen Family Fellow. He specializes in nonviolent social change, conflict dynamics, social network analysis, and social theory. His research focuses on the role of civil resistance campaigns in contentious political transitions and the formation of social cohesion amidst conflict. Matt has conducted fieldwork in Egypt and Lebanon and has extensive peacebuilding experience in Iraq and Palestine.
Dissertation: Civil Resistance and the Dynamics of Contentious Politics in Egypt, 2011-2015
Heather M. DuBois
Theology & Peace Studies
Heather is a Notre Dame Presidential Fellow specializing in political theology, critical theory, and religion, conflict and peacebuilding with additional competence in moral philosophy and spirituality. Her research focuses on intrapersonal transformation, with special attention to socio-political power, virtue, and affect. She co-authored “The Intersection of Christian Theology and Peacebuilding,” published in The Oxford Handbook of Religion, Conflict, and Peacebuilding (2015).
Dissertation: To Be Fully Alive: John of the Cross and Judith Butler on Transformation of the Self
Chris Haw
Theology & Peace Studies
Chris Haw is a Ph.D. candidate in Systematic Theology and Peace Studies, specializing in political theology, the mimetic theory of René Girard, and the relationship between human evolution and religion. His current work focuses on the relationship between "intolerance" and the ambivalent potentials of monotheism--for both violent absolutism and a patient, agonistic approach to pluralistic openness. Chris is a Notebaert Fellow.
Dissertation: René Girard and Monotheism: the Refusal to Divinize Victims and the Mosaic Distinction
Caleb Hamman
Political Science & Peace Studies
Caleb is a Notre Dame Presidential Fellow specializing in political theory, international relations, and peace and conflict studies. His dissertation examines the place of the soldier in political life, as it has evolved from ancient times, to modernity, to the present day.
Dissertation title: The Soldier and Political Life
Laura Weis
History & Peace Studies
Laura, a Mullen Family Fellow, specializes in modern U.S. foreign relations history, with an emphasis on the changing role of religion in the development and implementation of U.S. policies at home and abroad. Her current research and dissertation focus on the salience of Islam in U.S.-Indonesian relations from 1954-1968. She is also interested in the "use" of history in foreign affairs, particularly the ways in which policymakers invoke particular narratives about the past in relationship to present-day questions about religion, conflict, and peace.
Dissertation title: Interpreting Islam: US Relations with Indonesia, 1954-1968