The ThinkND Podcast
The ThinkND Podcast
Notre Dame Leaders, Part 2: Equity and Resilience
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Episode Topic: Equity and Resilience
Join YoungND for a compelling conversation about "Equity and Resilience," featuring three 2025 Domer Dozen honorees: Kaleigh Yost '15, who is leading research to improve infrastructure and community resilience to natural hazards, Linde Hoffman '20, who is working to safely and sustainably shrink the criminal justice system, and Anna Benedict '21, who is fighting mental health stigma through the power of storytelling. Reimagine justice and resilience through innovation.
Featured Speakers:
- Anna Benedict '21, Our Stories Project
- Linde Hoffman '21, Recidiviz
- Dr. Kaleigh Yost '15, Pennsylvania State University
Read this episode's recap over on the University of Notre Dame's open online learning community platform, ThinkND: https://go.nd.edu/f99b8a.
This podcast is a part of the ThinkND Series titled Notre Dame Leaders.
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Welcome and Introduction
1Hello everyone. Um, thank you for joining us this evening. We are excited to welcome you to Equity and Resilience, most recent installment of Notre Dame Leaders Speaker series. Uh, tonight we're hosting three of our Dom dozen honorees selected earlier this fall for their significant contributions to de and dedication. Excuse me, to. Learning, faith, service and work. Uh, our conversation with Anna, Lindy, and Kaylee this evening will be about how creativity, business and communication can be leveraged to fight injustice and advocate for the dignity and wellbeing of all. Before we get started, just a few notes to help our conversation runs smoothly. this session is being. and we welcome your questions. So please utilize, the chat. Let us know where you're joining us from and any questions that you have for our speakers. To get started, uh, we'll introduce the three women we have joining us this evening to begin. Lindy Hoffman. Lindy is a state engagement manager at. Recidivism, a nonprofit organization using data and technology to reform the criminal justice system. Lindy has worked in police reform, reentry support, and policy innovation, and is currently pursuing her Masters of Public Policy at Georgetown University.
Speaker 2Anna Benedict is the founder of the Our Stories Project, bringing together mental health advocacy and storytelling to combat stigma and build empathy. Our Stories project partners with student partners, students with people living with serious mental illness to co-author and publish their life stories. Now, a clinical psychology PhD student at Michigan State, she studies narrative identity and resilience while scaling the Our Stories project into a global curriculum. Dr. Kaylee Yo Yost is a civil and environmental engineering professor at Penn State. Her work focuses on improving infrastructure and community resilience to natural hazards like floods, earthquakes, and coastal storms. She also co-leads national and international disaster policy efforts and was recognized with the 2025 EERI younger member award. Welcome.
1Thank you all again for being here. we'd like to get started just hearing a little bit more about each of you, about the work you do and, and why you chose your career path. So, Lindy, um, can you let us know what sparked your interest in, in the justice system and how you made the decision to pursue justice reform post-graduation?
Speaker 3Yeah, absolutely. So I first became interested in criminal justice reform after reading Brian Stevenson's book, just Mercy, which is about his work, exonerating people who were wrongfully convicted. And I read that freshman year at Notre Dame and I got an email from what was then the Center for Social Concerns. I think now it's the Institute for Social Concerns, talking about a class. They had called inside out where undergrads could go to Westville Correctional Facility, which is about an hour drive from campus and take class in the prison alongside people who were incarcerated there. And I had just finished the book and I thought it was such a cool opportunity. So I applied to the class, got in, ended up doing it my sophomore year, and it was. Completely life changing. and it really helped me discern justice reform as what I consider my vocation. And two years later, when I graduated, I decided to do a year of service in Chicago. and then I taught programming in Cook County Jail to the women's division there.
1It looks like Lindy might have got frozen there. Well, well, we get that resolved. Kaylee, disaster relief community rebuilding that can be challenging in, in an unpredictable space. what led you to this path and, and inspired you to take on this work?
Speaker 4Yeah, so I kind of always knew that I wanted to be a civil engineer from like a weirdly young age, but I wasn't exactly sure kind of what path that might lead me down. and when I was starting to look at colleges, I, um, I'm dating myself a little bit here, but I was in high school when, um, the Christchurch New Zealand earthquakes occurred and the Haiti earthquake occurred, these big earthquakes, in the early 20, before 2010. Um, and, uh. These were really impactful for me. For some reason. They really, I, I observed how, what seemed like two pretty similar, earthquakes to me as a, you know, untrained high school student had such different impacts that, you know, devastating impacts in Haiti. Over 200,000 people died. Um, and in Christchurch, you know, there still over a hundred people died, but it just wasn't the same magnitude of disruption. and, and I was kind of fascinated by that. And I realized when I came to Notre Dame that I had this opportunity to study how civil engineers could prevent disasters like that from happening by building more resilient infrastructure. and so the earthquake engineering piece hooked me first. And then, when I was at Notre Dame, my, my home state of New Jersey was hit by. That kind of made natural disasters more personal for me because I'll, I'll never forget standing. I used to work in la Fortune Student Center and I was standing there watching the storm hit my home state and my communities. and it was just so impactful. Like I, I wanted to do something about that and I wanted to be able to help communities build a more resilient infrastructure so that they could continue to function after these types of events. So that kind of was where I got started. And as I progressed through my time at Notre Dame, I was able to work on research projects that were related to the, the Haiti earthquakes. When I did my master's degree. I gotta, delve a little bit deeper into the Christchurch earthquakes and, eventually I found my way back into academia after working for a little while, and again was studying, Christchurch earthquakes. So it's always been something that I felt kind of. Passionate, passion, and I'm really excited now as a professor that I could choose to continue pursuing that path as, as my career progresses.
1That's incredible. I, um, I was born and raised in New York, so affected by Superstorm Sandy as well. and yes, I, I remember that that time as well. And it definitely, I think that's. Fantastic that you had this vision of what you wanted to do from a young age, and it just continued to grow and, um, and you were able to, to come into that, to that position. Lindy, we'll go back to you if we got a little cut off there. but I said you were talking about the class you took at Notre Dame post-graduation, how you kind of kept going in, pursuing justice reform.
Anna Benedict's Our Stories Project
Speaker 3Yeah, sorry about that. I was having some wifi issues. but yeah, so after graduation I did a year of service in Chicago and I worked in Cook County jail and taught programming to the women's division and worked with people one-on-one, helping them reenter into their community post-incarceration. And so I've really just been in love with the fields of criminal justice
1ever since then. Amazing, amazing work. Anna, our stories project is so unique, and I can imagine building something like that truly from the ground up, takes a lot of work. where did the idea come from for the organization and what's the journey been like to, to grow the project, to what it's today?
Speaker 5Sure. Yeah. So in undergrad, I was a neuroscience and behavior and an English major. Which sound like two completely discrepant things, but are actually not. And um, I was always looking for ways to bring those two, fields of interest together. and so my freshman year, like Lindy, I had also taken a course through the Center for Social Concerns. Now the institute, uh, for social concerns. And I learned about, the community of, uh, what are called clubhouses, which are psychosocial rehabilitation centers for folks living with serious mental illness. and I really came to appreciate, not only like the fact that the commun community was so vibrant, but also that it focused on people's strengths in a way that is really not seen in, much of the clinical world of mental healthcare. but I also was really moved by these first person perspectives. Um, whereas in the classroom, typically we saw the clinical perspective. Even if, you know, someone living with mental illness like was in the room, like it was usually like, okay, now that's something that shows this, this symptom. Rather than, um, the person talking about how they live their day-to-day life. And so, you know, story is something that I've always really, really loved, um, like through literature and art and whatnot. and so when COVID-19 hit, um, I had this idea, um, to, bring the local clubhouse and Notre Dame students together. to help, uh, for, for Notre Dame students to help clubhouse members tell their stories. And the clubhouse had been asking for, um, a long time for, someone to help them write their life stories. But as is usually the case in nonprofits, like nobody really, or it was, it was too short staffed to have somebody be able to meet that need. And so it was really, you know, fortuitous that I would, I had the opportunity to, form this, this new. volunteering opportunity for students and also this new form of connection between these two communities. and so since then, and, uh, since then, like they, they helped to co-write the, the memoirs of, uh, the member of the members, which I then published in a book. And I've led that, um, project twice since then. or three times total since then. Um, once at the clubhouse of St. Joseph County in, south Bend, and then twice at Queen City Clubhouse. In Cincinnati, Ohio, which is where I lived after graduation. and it's been a really incredible journey, since then. you know, leading this project, publishing three books outta it, becoming involved in the broader, um, clubhouse community, which is a really, it is a global community, but it is a very, tight knit one, which is really cool to be part of. and the journey has really been one of like both accepting imperfection, but also focusing on the good and like really being able to tailor this. Project to suit both, the needs and interests of the community, but also my own, um, interest as well as this, unique project that Bo that was able to bring these fields of interest together for me. Awesome.
1Um, as a follow up to that, what was your process for getting student volunteers? Did you connect with friends, classmates through the center of social concerns? What was, how was that received? How many volunteers did you start with? How many did you have going forward?
Speaker 5Yeah, great question. Um, so it was, it was kind of a combination of just like reaching out to people who were, I think I reached out to like people who were at the heads of like the neuroscience and the English majors as well as like the psych major and my creative writing club and the Glen Family Honors Program and the Merit Scholars program. And just kind of like word of mouthing my, my way around the university, especially in a time when, so much. and then since then, um, since working with, uh. The, uh, university of Cincinnati, that's been something where I've been contacting, like the heads of various clubs, the various departments, and, like really being able to make those connections with, with people who are on like Big Listervs has been, has been pretty useful. Um, but it has been something that, has been really, uh, neat for, for students to be part of as well, because a lot of people had the same kind of classroom experience I had of, Person, like first person perspectives are not the ones that tend to be prioritized. and that's something that, I, I really wanted to give back to other students since I had that opportunity through the Center for Social Concern Seminar. That was so formative for me.
1Awesome. Awesome. Um, well thank you all for, for sharing a little bit more about your, your backgrounds and, and how you got to where you are today. to give us all a better understanding of what your current day to day looks like. Um, would love to hear from each of you about. One particular project or a piece of work that's been, um, significant in, in your career, you know, was it something that kind of changed the trajectory of your career? Some key takeaways from that experience. Lindy, if you wanna start us off?
Speaker 3Yeah, I can start us off. so in my last role, I was working at a law enforcement training program that was kind of built as a response to the murder of George Floyd. And essentially it worked to directly with law enforcement on decreasing misconduct, decreasing police mistakes, and helping to bolster officer health and wellness because we really believe that health and wellness underpins everything else that goes on in public safety. And so. Through my role, I wrote a recommendations guide where I just basically summarized a bunch of the research out there on what is important for Officer Health and Wellness, and ended up having the opportunity to publish that alongside the Department of Justice as part of an official set of recommendations for law enforcement agencies across the country. And I think for me, that role was really transformative when it came to understanding where I felt I could make the most impact within the criminal justice system. I think like a movement has a lot of different parts to it. There are people who are kind of advocating from outside of the system, who are protesting, who are making art, who are kind of leading movements and community organizing and all of that is absolutely essential to a movement. It's so important, but also I think not a lot of people think about reform when it comes to working with people who are like actually working in the criminal justice system. And I think that works. It's just as important. And so that was something that, you know, became really clear to me when doing all of this research. I just felt we were really kind of ignoring the experiences, not only of people who are incarcerated, who are on community supervision, who've touched the justice system in some way. Where are their voices in this? And also what about the people who touch the system and who were drawn to criminal justice? Because they too really care about safe communities and they really care about the people who are involved in the system. They wouldn't be there if they didn't. People who were doing that work and, and felt like they were making a big difference in people's lives. Um, and I just realized that like that's the place that I wanted to work, in the movement. I really wanted to work with people, even if we kind of see the world a little bit differently. It was like building those relationships and finding common values. That was really important to me. So, yeah, it was a cool project.
1Awesome. No, thank you for sharing. I know it's, When you leave school, you have a broad idea of something you wanna do. But as we all know it, it takes multiple times to go through things and learn different aspects of one particular industry before you really find what your true passion is. And, um, so thank you for, for sharing that. Kaylee?
Speaker 4Yeah, Colleen. Perfect. Lead in to how I was gonna respond to this question. Um, so. I, after I finished up at Notre Dame, I, I knew I wanted to pursue this path of geotechnical engineering. So I, I'm a geotechnical engineer. I work on characterizing the subsurface, understanding how soil properties impact soil behavior, and in particular how that happens during, earthquakes, floods, things like that. So I knew I wanted to, to study geotechnical engineering. I knew I needed a master's degree, so I went right into a master's program at the University of Texas. And boy, I did not wanna be in school anymore. I had an awesome time there, but I was so ready to move on. And so after that I, I took what I thought was gonna be kind of like my dream job. It was an ideal scenario. It was a job I thought I wanted when I left Notre Dame, and it was awesome for about six months. And, and at that point I started to question, you know, is this really what I wanna be doing for the rest of my life? and I had to go through some serious soul searching to kind of figure out what I wanted to do next because it became clear that, that that wasn't my, my long term, what I wanted to do in the long term. And so the project that really changed the trajectory of my career was my PhD project. when I, when I left my master's program, I swore I would never go back to school. I had no interest in getting a PhD. And the lesson learned here is never say never. and the, uh, the project that was posed to me I was really excited about it was looking at, again, you know. 2010. 2011 Canterbury Earthquake Sequence in Christchurch, New Zealand and trying to understand why some of our state of the art methods of understanding how soil behaves during earthquakes were not accurate when we did these retrospective analysis looking at these Christchurch earthquakes. And it's important because not only could we not explain the observations from that earthquake, but it has implications for future earthquakes, right? If we can't accurately predict how things are gonna behave. then it has, implications for people trying to get insurance people that are maybe being told they need to leave their homes because it's not safe to live there anymore. so I was really excited about this and it, it, convinced me that, that I should go back to school and continue studying this topic in, in more detail. So, yeah, my, my takeaways were, were never say never. Also, you're never gonna have as much time as you do right now. You always think that you're so busy. I had just gotten married, I had moved across the country. This seemed like a huge leap for me to go back to school. And in reality, it, it wasn't, you know, um, it, it ended up being like the fastest four years ever, going through my PhD program. And it was, I, I, I don't regret it. I never did when, when I was, when I was there either. So I think, being flexible and, and taking that time to really discern what it's, that you wanna pursue in that those years after you graduate is, is so important.
1So yeah, never say never. Definitely something I think we all need to remind ourselves of from time to time. Anna, what about you? A, a project, that was particularly significant.
Speaker 5I mean, I think, I mean, VR stories project for me has been kind of at, at the core of, uh, has been at the core of both my advocacy work and my research work as I'm building it. and I, I want to kind of add onto that and say that like the, in graduate school I discovered this field of narrative identity, um, which is, how our life stories are tied into our sense of self. And I feel that that really put. Words and frameworks behind something that I was discovering holistically working with people, in the field in the more applied sense. and, it really, yeah, put a, put additional language to how, the, the inside of people who are experts by experience, um, really experience, uh, is something that is really valuable in addition to people who are like experts by training. and so. because people's life stories contain things that are so rich that can't be captured by our, like, traditional, like clinical skills that we use. and on top of that, our stories are things that, connect us to each other, you know, not just as sources of, you know, scientific insights within the ivory tower, but there are things that are like inherent to being human. Um, and so, there, there, there are things that, um. A really indicative of who we are, but also of, of, the culture that we live in, of our journeys towards recovery if we're living through something like a serious mental illness. but, you know, the, our Stories project, um, really showed me how much that, people's, the, the perspectives of people who are mental health, healthcare consumers really matters and also, um, how that can be different from the priorities of, of mental healthcare providers. Um. And, you know, these are, these are different things, so how do we reconcile them? and also working with the Clubhouse really showed me that, like looking at re recovery and looking through a strengths oriented perspective, number one is really overlooked through the clinical model typically, but also really matters for actual outcomes for people living on the ground. so I, I think, the R Stories project and then working with narrative identity has, has really, motivated me to kind of con continue in that vein. That's so cool. And I think,
Balancing Data-Driven and Human-Centric Approaches
Speaker 2you know, we've only scratched the surface of the complexities of each of your roles and industries, in a similar vein, right? You're balancing two sides of the same coin in your own careers. So you're taking a very data-driven, innovative, you know, research approach, and you're balancing that with this commitment to relationships and building equity and dignity. in each of the communities you're part of, how do you, maybe Lindy, we start with you, how do you navigate that balance in your work and what advice would you give to others in similar shoes? Be it, you know, a different industry like medicine or, or whatever it may be, where you have to balance, you know, more hard skills with more soft skills. Maybe, maybe to simplify it a bit.
Speaker 3Yeah, absolutely. So that's something that we contemplate a lot at Recidivism, which is a nonprofit tech company that I currently work for. So a little bit of background because otherwise it won't make my answer, won't make sense. Um, recidivist partners with Department of Corrections to essentially help them with technology and with data. So Department of Corrections or docs, as we call them, have a lot of data, but they, their technology systems are usually really, really old. Like I'm talking about. They're using systems that were built. Eighties and nineties and staff members who are used to having a computer in their pockets that can do so much more than what they're capable of, of what, what their, what their tech is capable of doing at work. and so we're kind of tasked with helping them modernize in a lot of ways. but the things that we're particularly good at are kind of surfacing opportunities for people who are involved in the criminal justice system to kind of move along in their journey a little bit faster than they otherwise might. So like. How about somebody who is eligible for a particular program or, um, an opportunity to get downgraded from a higher security level facility to a lower security level facility. We can like find those people in the data and show them to the right people and say, this person is eligible today to get moved somewhere lower. And otherwise they might not know that for months or unless they just kind of decide that they want to check. Uh, whether that person happens to be eligible for something, so it's pretty cool. One of the things that we're kind of doing right now that is, I know just a huge topic in the field of tech in general, is we're starting to deploy some tools using artificial intelligence. And that's something that I think really freaks a lot of people out at first. There's kind of a lot of snake oil out there with people telling you it's gonna solve all of your problems. And then there's other people that are telling you it's gonna like destroy the world and it's gonna take over humankind and like, neither of those things are true, like it's just a tool. but we found it's really, really important to have really strong ethical guidelines when it comes to involving artificial intelligence with outcomes that affect real people. And so that's something we talk about a lot at work. and I think kind of the, the solution that I think kind of everybody sees as necessary is involving a human being during every step of a decision making process that might involve artificial intelligence. And so, um, not only is like, you know, the chat bot that we created. Only allowed to ask questions that have already been pre decided by, you know, experts in the field. But also like everything that that, that any part of AI says comes with citations to previous to where they're pulling the information that you can click on and go verify. And it's never making a decision for you. It's always just giving you information and then you can decide where to go from there. And so I think. When we're talking about ethics and data and tech and, and research, it's, it's human beings that need to be the driver behind all of that. And I think, um, kind of marrying those two things together is, is something that's really, really important to be thinking about right now.
Speaker 2I can only imagine how frustrating that is to have, you know, material change like at your fingertips for an individual, but then you know the process and the red tape stops you and, and really makes a difference in, in that person's lives and then life. And then when you multiply it by the number of people that it could touch, I mean, it's, it's really powerful. So, so really, really cool to hear about. Kaylee, what about you? What is, how do you strike this balance, in, in your work?
Speaker 4Yeah, this is a really interesting question for me as an engineer. So I have observed in many cases that engineers often like to just jump in and solve the problem that they perceive to be the problem. And a lot of times that's not actually the best approach and. I really, I, I learned about how to take a, a bigger picture approach to solve engineering problems when I was at Notre Dame, from, from my mentors. And I've really tried to carry that with me. So an example is I'm working on a project, trying to promote flood resilience in rural communities in Pennsylvania. And when we first approached this project as engineers, we kind of started with this team of engineers we're, our understanding of the problem was. These communities in Pennsylvania have levee systems that protect them from river floods, but the levee systems are really old. They're deteriorating and they need to be upgraded because they are, are at the end of their design life, and the storms of the future are going to be worse in the storms of the past. So that's kind of the engineering problem, but when you actually go and spend time in these communities and understand what, where they're coming from and what their stories are. You, you get a different perspective and you start to understand that actually just mowing the grass on these levies to maintain that tiny little piece of it is almost more than they can handle financially. And, you know, they don't have enough folks that, that are even in the town to employ to, to do the maintenance that's required on these levee systems. Let perform the type of engineering investigation and analysis that are required to actually upgrade the system to modern standards. Right? So it's a very sticky problem because these infrastructure projects are, are pretty significant and, and have really big impacts on these people's lives. But the fact of the matter is we can't just in and tell they need build levy hire because that's not an option in many communities. It's been super important for us to kind of hear the stories of the folks that are being protected by these levees. And I, I loved what Anna said about, I wrote it down to make sure I get it right, experts by experience, right? Like we're the experts at the engineering aspect of things. The people that live behind these levies in many cases have lived there for so many years. They've experienced flood after flood, after flood. And they know what their community values and they know what the real problems are in their community. So as a researcher, it's been super important, and really exciting for me too, as somebody that's kind of been classically trained as an engineer to have this experience, to actually partner with these communities, to be able to better understand what problems we can actually help them with in, in a way that's actually beneficial to their community and not just an outsider's opinion of what needs to be done.
Speaker 2What you, what you said about how you frame the problem is how you solve the problem really resonates with me because you can go in with your hypothesis, right? But there's this whole ecosystem of other stakeholders and other people that without their input, like you're not even solving the right problem at times. so super interesting. Anna, what about you?
Evaluating Research Priorities in Mental Health
Speaker 5Yeah, great question. Yeah, I mean that can kind of like Kaleigh was talk, talking about that can, um, really be tough, like especially when, um, the priorities of the community don't align with the priorities of like the researchers or the people with the funding. and especially when like the research world is one that like. By its nature frequently takes years of training to be able to understand. So it's not something where you can meet on a completely one-to-one level and ask, you know, the same issues of a community stakeholder that you can ask of a collaborator who has the same uh, experience that you do. but, I think, you know, scientific and empiricism is a really valuable way to generate knowledge. but we do have to make sure that the questions that we're asking are actually useful ones. and so, you know, if we're putting all of our energy and funding, towards a root, that like only explains like 2% of the variants in people's outcomes, is that the best place to put our energy and funding? and you know, mechanisms are like, brain mechanisms are a really complex thing. but also the psychosocial side of things, really matters too. And that's something that tends to be. more accessible to stakeholders and that at the end of the day, can often matter, matter more for somebody's day-to-day, wellbeing. and, and also like, you know, focusing on symptoms in the clinical world is something, um, that typically matters for clinicians like we care about. Stabilizing someone. We, we care about, helping the person kind of like be, be safe with themself. but for people living with mental illness, it's usually like at the end of the day, their wellbeing that matters rather than reducing symptoms. and so a lot of the times these are on that same page, but sometimes those priorities don't always align. Um, like especially when something as complex as medication is looped into the picture. Which can be really effective at reducing symptoms. Um, and it's really important as like a baseline intervention for people. but you know, they also have side effects. They like set people with energy sometimes and they don't address that deep sense of malaise, which is something that, people find through interventions, that draw upon their strengths, to kind of help, help rebuild the person after, after illness. And so in, tangibly, like in, in research, wor in the research world, like in my own work, I'm starting to kind of work in that spectrum of community engaged research development. and I've, I've joined like various advisory boards to learn more about what matters, to mental healthcare consumers, um, as well as to research communities and kind of like how do we bridge the ivory tower with, with, you know, the communities that we're living in.
Speaker 2I'm sure doing, working on the Our Stories project right, has a great parallel and kind of, you can almost test in real time some of the things you're researching and, you know, maybe the insights go back and forth. Can you speak a little bit more to, you know, how that academia perspective makes our stories better and how, you know, having our stories makes your academic perspective better?
Speaker 5Yeah, yeah. Great question. so, So through, through the academic perspective, I've learned a lot about the, uh, like both things that, that matter for people in their, but both things that matter for people, both on the personal level and at the micro community level and at the macro community level. and those are all things that go into someone's identity and also the ways that they tell stories about themselves. and in the academic world, I now have this, richer language to talk about stories, that I can bring into my advocacy work, um, to ask, uh, deeper questions of people that, kind of are, are more effective at, getting to things that matter to them. So, you know, some language around like autobiographical, re reasoning agency and communion, temporal coherence, all of these things that, like are, are from the research world that, that break down. What, what story is, and what narrative is in a way that is like psychologically, meaningful to people. and I also think about, you know, in, in the advocacy world, bringing into the research space, the research space is really good for, like address, like figuring out why questions. but the advocacy space is really important for figuring out like why things matter. and so that's, that's something that, kind of, kind of going back to the, like asking the right questions, sentiment, that's, that's something that working with people in the field, um, has asked, helped me ask better questions and more empathetic questions. that. I look at the, you know, if I'm studying schizophrenia, for instance, I'm looking at the, the research that I'm approaching through the lens of like, this is someone living with an illness rather than this is the context of an illness. Decontextualized.
Speaker 2Yeah, that, that's super interesting. Lindy, I'd wonder too, now you're back in school, um, getting your master's in public policy, what led you back to the classroom? How has that been and how do your studies contribute to your work and vice versa? Similar to, to Anna's question.
Speaker 3Yeah. Um, I'm in the evening program at Georgetown, so I take my classes at night and I'm working at recidivism during the day, which was a crazy idea. I dunno why I decided on that, but, um, so I was a political science major. At Notre Dame and when I decided on that, I was like perfectly happy to never see a math problem ever again in my life. And I didn't take a single math class, all of undergrad. I thought I was gonna law school at the time, so I thought I was never gonna need this ever again. Um, but once I decided that I wanted to be in policy, I started to understand how necessary data is for measuring effective policy solutions. Importantly for pitching policy changes to stakeholders. They wanna know immediately what is the impact that have financially, what's communities affects, what has, you know, previous research said, can we project something into the future? Like those are the questions that I realized I had. I was just not equipped to know how to answer at all. And so. That's when I decided I wanted to go get my master's. and Georgetown has a really quantitative focused program, which again, crazy idea because I had literally no background in that whatsoever. So that was a challenge. Um, and through my QUT classes at this point, and now I'm in my final year, uh, of the program and I'm writing my thesis now. so like, fingers crossed, will graduate in May. but it has been, it's been a really amazing experience. I feel like I've really filled. A gap in the knowledge that I, you know, had from undergrad. I had the best foundation. I have breezed through every possible class that doesn't have to do with math. Um, my only regret is not having taken econ during undergrad. That would've been awesome if I had thought of that. so if there are any undergrads on who, are trying to avoid math, it'll come back to bite you. I promise
Speaker 2Sage advice. I think we could all benefit from a few more econ classes. Um, Kaylee, you mentioned how maybe you went back to the classroom again and you, it maybe was a harder transition and you were like, ah, I don't know if I wanna do this. But then you're still in the classroom right now, you're in a professor role at Penn State. How did your time at Notre Dame and in further education. Influence how you teach and how you are in the classroom. And I don't know if there are any particular professors or mentors that maybe shaped that, the most.
Speaker 4Yeah, great question. yeah, I think the best thing about Notre Dame civil engineering program was its size. It was a small program. Everybody knew each other. The professors knew who you were. And I felt like they were genuinely invested in every student's success, which was really cool. it was hard, but you were in in it with everybody else, you know? and ever since I've been at large state schools, I did my master's at UT Austin, uh, my PhD at Virginia Tech, and now I'm at Penn State, and I'm not gonna lie, it's hard to scale that. Mentality as a faculty member up when you're teaching such large classes? So I, I try, I, you know, I, I was in higher ed for 10 years before I came to Penn State. and I tried to, to adapt my teaching, to try to take the best of the different professors that I've had over those 10 years. For large classes, I try to be super available to my students, so I make sure that I have an open door policy, you know, welcome to swing by my office and chat anytime. I'm in there. I make sure I have in-person office hours, which sounds like bare minimum. But in this day and age, a lot of faculty just wanna have the Zoom call with you. and I think that making that person in-person connection is really important for a lot of students. and. Yeah, it's also just necessary to be agile and adapt. Like I think we're going through a really big shift in higher ed right now trying to understand how AI is gonna fit into our, our courses and the way our students think and learn, and it's necessary to, to adapt to their needs. You know, the way that I learned when I was a college student is not the same way that the college students today are learning. Even though I'm a relatively young faculty member in my department, it's still, it's still hard for me to, to kind of pinpoint exactly what path I should be going down to better connect with the students, but definitely take, definitely take the best from all of my, my mentors at all of my different universities. Um, I, I was. Really pleased with my, my experience in the civil engineering program at Notre Dame. I felt like when I went to graduate school, I was really prepared, like just as prepared as students that maybe went to, you know, the top five civil engineering programs. Right. You know, I think that having that small class size and that that close bond with the professors was far and away, um, put me in an advantage when I went to graduate school. So. definitely, definitely prepared me well, and, and I loved going to three different universities too. That really gave me a different, unique perspective when I, when I go to Teach now, because I've had that experience learning from so many different people.
1Yeah, absolutely. I can, I can imagine it's a little bit of a, uh, easier said than done. You know, we, we sat there as students like, oh, if the professor just did this, this, and this, this class would be so much better. And finally, you're in the professor's shoes and you're like. Well, still got, still got a bit of a learning curve.
Current Reads and Recommendations
Speaker 4Well, I can tell you that they're not afraid to let us know.
1Oh, I'm sure. I'm sure. shifting gears a little bit of a lighter question maybe, you know, Lindy, you had mentioned, uh, at the beginning you had read one book that particularly inspired you to, to get into your, your world. What about nowadays? each of you, you know, is there something you are, you are reading right now or a podcast, you're listening to articles, any recommendations that you might have, whether it's inside your kind of, within your career or just in, in your day to day life. we'd love to to hear some recommendations.
Speaker 3Yeah. I am a huge reader, but this is not gonna be anything related to my work because once I, that's okay. Yeah. Once I've like worked nine to five and then I get, yeah. Sometimes you want reading is a distraction. That's totally fine. Exactly. Um, but I, I do a lot of audio books. hugely recommend the Libby app. If anybody doesn't know about it, you can rent your, a big fan it looks like. Yeah, it's best. Finished listening to Ina Garten's memoir. Be Lucky. Be Be Ready When The Luck Happens. she, I don't know if, if everybody knows who she is, she's like, I think pretty well known chef. she's on Food Network. She's just like a, she's a home cook. She doesn't have like formal culinary training, but she just has like, the best personality and her memoir is fascinating. She, uh, so I, I live in DC obviously, I go to Georgetown. You guys know that, but, um, she, she lived here, she worked in the federal government for like the entirety of her twenties and then in her thirties she was just like done with that and wanted to totally pivot into food and beverage. And that's like a side interest of mine. I'm like a huge foodie. I love to cook. And so like, there's just like a tiny little bit of me that's like, well, what if like. Soon, but like, what if I'm the next time to garden? I'm not, but like, what if I could be, you know, you could be, we might see
1you on the food network one day, who knows?
Speaker 3You might. Uh, but I would really recommend the, the listen, especially because she reads it to you and her voice is just so soothing.
1Awesome. Awesome. Thank you. Kaylee or Anna, do you guys have any, any recommendations at the moment?
Speaker 4Yeah, I, I'm also a big reader and I've gotten, I love fiction. Most, most of what I read is fiction. So I think my favorite book over the past year was Martyr. I dunno if it's was a Top New Times book or whatever. So it's popular Kabar really, really good. He's a poet, but this was, I think his first book. So it was very, it was beautiful read. Um, enjoyed that. For more fun, I guess. I, I just had a baby in April, so I, I've been trying to Congratulations. Thank you. Some lighter things. Um, and, uh, I, I read a bunch of the Rivers of London series, which is like a mashup of detective novel and Harry Potter. So highly recommend, very easy read. and if you like London, it's especially, especially fun, fun book to read.
1Definitely need to look that one up.
Speaker 3I'm literally writing it down right now. Rivers of I'm writing what out too.
Speaker 4Rivers of London. It's a whole series. Yeah. That's awesome. Awesome, Anna.
Speaker 5Yeah. I mean, for better or for worse, one of the, the characteristic parts of a PhD program is that you kind of like live and breathe the research that you do. Which is intense, but I since, like, what I do is so interdisciplinary and it's tied into my advocacy work and my research work and my creative writing work. I, I, I am loving the, the intensity of that. and so one, book recently that I read that is fiction, that kind of looks at story at the meta level, is The Starless Sea by Aaron Morgan Stern. Which is this beautifully written book, um, that is very much like a love letter to story as a concept. and it follows, it follows, the protagonist is a graduate student, um, who, uh, gets, he gets sucked into this other world, that exists. And, uh, he's, he's coming in at the end of the story. Um, and like he, he basically falls into this world that is story and it's crumbling down around him. He has to like, find his way out, but also find how he fits into it. Um, but it is, it is a very like metalevel thing. but I really enjoyed it. and I'm also enjoying thinking about like, why certain tropes resonate with people. Like how are those, like tropes and archetypes, like things that build culture and are bound to it and they like kind of in the like Jungian sense, but also in the folklore sense. I just think, piecing those things apart is something that is, Psychologically and culturally and like artistically. Very interesting.
1Awesome. I think definitely think we've got some, uh, some good recommendations. Good recommendations. There Might have to start a, a young nd book club. Um, we have a question from the chat and I think it's a great one. obviously nowadays, really being able to kind of. With our technology, you're available anywhere. I know a lot of people struggle with kind of a work life balance, um, and you know, Lindy, you're working and in school, and Anna, you're in school. Kaylee, you have a child at home. what do you guys find is the most valuable way to, to spend the free time that you do have? Uh, when, when you're able to step away from, from the busy work or school schedule?
Speaker 3That's so tough. Um, I, I work remotely, so that's also hard. Um, and sometimes I'll find. I go whole days without going outside, and that is not good. So I have found, for me, I've been really intentional recently about taking time to go on a walk every day, and often just like make myself do it without listening to any music or a podcast or anything, but just like be there with my own thoughts and it kind of turns like meditative after a while and, and it's just very calming and so. I don't live in an area that's near a lot of nature. If I did, I would, I would mix that into, but, I think that's, that's the best way to just kind of like take a full break from screens because I, I just think we, we all just go from like the medium screen to the big screen to the small screen and, and that that's not no good. A full unplug.
1We all need it.
Speaker 4I don't have free time anymore, but before I had my baby, I was looking for something to do, like, kind of as a hobby. You get to the point, in your life after you're done with school where you realize you don't really have hobbies anymore and necessarily, so I was looking for something new to do and my husband and I actually started learning Portuguese for fun. so that was a really like, refreshing way to kind of turn my brain on a different mode away from work, but still in a learning. it's, you know, still doing something productive and still learning and we really enjoyed that. So I've, I follow a few Portuguese Instagram accounts now to try to keep up with it, but, uh, we were taking real lessons and like taking notes and doing homework and things like that. So that's, that was one fun thing that I did at one point last year.
1That's awesome. That's awesome.
Speaker 5Yeah, for me, I'm a very like, like tactile, crafty person. And so I think, like knitting and crocheting has been something that has, been so like nice recently for me because it's something that's like, it's fairly low energy to do. It's something I can do sitting on the couch and chilling. Um, or it's something I can do in the car. Like, um, if someone else is driving and I'm like looking out the window. and it's something that really helps to scratch that creative itch that I have, when I'm not able to, uh, you know, exert the same kind of energy for like my, uh, like creative writing that I normally would, during, uh, a time that's like not the academic year. So it's been nice to have some, for some form of like creative outlet, that is really, calming. And also you have something like nice at the end to show for it.
1Absolutely. I am a, I'm a needle point person, so I totally, yeah, I can sit on the couch and do it, but it takes me away from screens. So, I, I completely relate.
Speaker 2You're inspiring me. I need to get back to knitting, to, but, and reading, you have shared so many wonderful lessons, in the last almost hour. What's next for each of you, I'd love to hear a little bit more about if there are any goals you're working toward or projects that are on the horizon that you're excited about.
Speaker 3I can start, I guess. I think I've been the one to start all the, so I'm in this, this really strange place right now with my career where the job that I have right now is what I would've said was my dream job when I was in college. And it happened to me a lot quicker than I really ever thought it would, and I genuinely like. It did kind of happen to me. I, I obviously worked for it, but I also feel very lucky to have found what I wanted to do while I was in college and, you know, had the, the kind of steps presented to me just kind of through happenstance to get to where I am. And I honestly have no idea what could come after this. I might like totally pivot like on a garden and do something totally different, or I might do this forever, but, it won't happen anytime soon. So I feel like. There's really not another goal career-wise for me that's upcoming. I, I think it's more just finishing my thesis. That's gonna be a huge, thing for me. And so I'm, I'm writing it on the intersection of education and mental health with youth who are involved in the justice system. So, I mean, classic, it's, it's still related to my career, but just kind of a, an a side interest of mine. Otherwise, I'm, I'm trying to like cook my way through an entire cookbook. That's like a fun goal that I have. I've never done that, and so I'm just gonna make every single recipe and see what happens.
1That's so exciting. And it's, you really might, the next I, how
Speaker 2about you, Kaylee, or, or Anna, whoever wants to go.
Speaker 4Oh, okay. I'll go. Um. I, I'm kind of like, I feel like I'm, I'm at finishing a chapter and starting a new chapter both in my career and my life right now as things get sort of back to normal. Um, and I start teaching again in the spring. I think, uh, one project I'm working on that I'm really excited about is, uh, study looking at how private sector companies view built environment resilience, and we've conducted a. A lot interviews, uh, talking to different folks and just seeing the range of responses has been super interesting. But I've learned that, tapping into the private sector and also the insurance industry is gonna be really important for promoting resilience, in, in the coming years. And so I'm really excited about kind of learning more about how that can help, incentivize resilience by, by working with private sector firms and insurance companies. To, to, um, make more resilient design choices more appealing to their, their clients. So that's, that's kind of a cool project that, that I'm working on. And then in terms of, teaching, which is kinda like the other half of my, my job, I think that. I need some need deep thinking about how to kind of revitalize and reorient my classes in this age of ai. Um, it's a hot topic in my department and in higher ed in general, but that's gonna be, I think, a big challenge. And the way that, the way that we've been teaching things maybe needs to, to change a little bit. So kind of revamping that as I, as I get back into teaching this spring.
Speaker 2Yeah, as, as learning changes, I guess the teaching has to change too. super, super interesting to think about.
Conclusion and Final Thoughts
Speaker 5And then I guess for me, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm relatively at the beginning of my research career. Like I'm in year two of six of my PhD program, so, still a good ways in, but still got a long ways to go. but I'm really looking forward to, thinking more deeply about my dissertation project, as I finish up the like master's portion of my. of my, of my program, since, one of, one of the projects I'll do for my dissertation will is gonna integrate some aspect of generativity and creativity, in the setting of like the clubhouse community. Um, since one of the things that is so, unique about that form of intervention is that it focus on, focuses on like. On your give back to other people, um, especially for people who are so used to, feeling like they can't do that or feeling like they're on the receiving end of things in a way that, might disempower them. and so I'm really interested in like, number one, how, how can we draw on people's like innate, creative urges, that then contribute in a, in a larger way. But also like how have communities like the Clubhouse already done that, done that for people, since that's something that's not typically like talked about in mental healthcare of creativity and giving back. and that's something that, stakeholders that I, I talk with and members at the clubhouse. Talk about a lot as something that has been key to their recovery, but I feel like isn't really represented in the research space. and it also really ties into like my love of, creativity and art and creative writing. At the clubhouse I used to teach, um, creative writing classes, which was such a fun time. Um, and it was really neat to see like if you give people, um, the time and the space and like the dignity to, to the dignity, to say that like what you create is art and I'm not going to evaluate it against anybody else. the, the kind of empowerment that can come from that for people is, is really cool. So I'm really looking forward to signing a project to explore that.
Speaker 2Wow. Love it. I, I know I'm so inspired. Thank you so much, Kaylee, Lindy, Anna, for joining us. Sharing your stories, your insights, your advice. Um, it's really inspiring to hear how each of you are making a real, tangible difference in the world. And solving the big questions, dare I say the right questions. so young alumni have so much to learn from you, so we're really grateful for your time. Thank you as well to our audience, we will be hosting more installments of Notre Dame leaders throughout the year, so please stay tuned. for future events, we'll send them out. but one of the best ways to keep up with what's happening with young nd is by following us on Instagram at young ND alumni. So thank you so much for joining us and go Irish.