Reilly Center advisory board members USAF Col. (Ret) John A. Warden III and Patrick J. McCloskey have penned a new op-ed for Forbes.com titled "Dealing With Iran As A Responsible Nuclear Power?" In their piece, Warden and McCloskey reflect on the Iran nuclear deal made in Geneva in November and the promises that were and were not made by the Iranian government. They use the lens of strategic planning to discuss the elements that may have gone into the decision making process. Read More

The University of Notre Dame’s John J. Reilly Center for Science, Technology and Values has just released its annual list of emerging ethical dilemmas and policy issues in science and technology for 2014.

This year, the issues range from DIY cyborgs to property rights in space and highlight issues in robotics, neuroscience, and economics. The list was created with the help of Reilly fellows, other Notre Dame experts, and friends of the center. Read More

The fellows of the John J. Reilly Center for Science, Technology, and Values at the University of Notre Dame elected four new members at their Fall meeting on November 25, 2013. The new fellows represent a wide array of expertise, hailing from four different schools – Arts & Letters, Law, Engineering, and Business - and all of them are heavily involved in educating audiences outside of academia. The new fellows are Michael Desch (Department of Political Science), MaryEllen O’Connell (Law School), Laurel Riek (Department of Computer Science and Engineering), and Brett Robinson (Department of Marketing). Read More

The Reilly Center for Science, Technology, and Values at the University of Notre Dame is pleased to sponsor an art exhibit as part of the 2013 Comet Festival activities taking place in South Bend, Indiana from November 28 to December 8. The festival is organized by Chuck Bueter, an award-winning local amateur astronomer who leads astronomy education and public outreach programs both regionally and nationally.

The Comet Festival Art Exhibit will open at the Colfax Cultural Center from November 19 to December 19, with a formal reception taking place on Friday, December 6, from 5:00 to 9:00 p.m. The exhibit will feature art by adults as well as by children from the South Bend Community School Corporation (SBCSC). Candace Butler, Art Facilitator for SBCSC has arranged for each of the over 20,000 children in South Bend schools to create a piece of art with a comet or solar system theme. The Comet Festival Art Exhibit will feature ten pieces from each of the 33 schools. Read More

The John J. Reilly Center for Science, Technology, and Values will host the annual meeting of the International Society for Military Ethics (ISME) from October 13-16, 2013. This year's conference is titled "Military Virtues and Contemporary Challenges." See reilly.nd.edu/isme13 for more details. Read More

The Reilly Center is pleased to announce that the NSF will fund our $300K proposal to the EESE Program (Ethics Education in Science and Engineering).

The proposal, entitled "Citizen-Scientists as Agents of Change: Training the Trainer in the Ethics of Science and Technology" aims to produce science and engineering graduate students who will be models of the ethically engaged citizen-scientist. A select group of fifteen students per year will have the opportunity for advanced training in the ethics of science and technology with a focus on “big picture” or “macro-ethics” issues.

  Read More

The Reilly Center received a grant for Ethics Education in Science and Engineering (EESE) from the National Science Foundation and is looking for a postdoctoral fellow to help with the project. (See original story here Read More

The South Bend Science Café will launch the first of a monthly series of presentations on science and society tonight, September 9, 2013 at 6pm at Chicory Cafe in downtown South Bend.

The South Bend Science Café originated as part of a presentation at Ignite Michiana by Jessica Baron from ND's Reilly Center for Science, Technology, and Values. To see the presentation, visit ignitemichiana.com. Read More

Two members of the Reilly Center advisory board as well as two members of our Emerging Technologies of National Security and Intelligence (ETNSI) initiative have appeared in the news over the last few weeks to discuss recent events and U.S. policy in Syria. Read More

We are pleased to announce that the GLOBES graduate program is now part of the John J. Reilly Center for Science, Technology, and Values. The move will take place before the start of the Fall 2013 semester and will allow for maximum collaboration between the two entites in the coming school year. Read More

The Global Adaptation Index (GAIN, now known as ND-GAIN) - the world’s leading Index showing which countries are best prepared to deal with droughts, super-storms, and other natural disasters that climate change can cause - is moving to the University of Notre Dame under the guidance of our partners at the Notre Dame Environmental Change Initiative (ND-ECI). ND-ECI announced the news today at a press conference at The National Press Club in Washington D.C. GAIN ranks countries annually based on how vulnerable they are to climate change and how prepared they are to adapt. It was formerly housed in the Global Adaptation Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit.

Five Reilly Fellows are involved in the beginning stages of ND-GAIN. In addition to David Lodge, fellows Jessica Hellmann (Biological Sciences) and Nitesh Chawla (Computer Science and Engineering) will be among key faculty working on the GAIN Index. Reilly Center Director Don Howard (Professor of Philosophy) as well as fellow Frank Incropera (H. Clifford and Evelyn A. Brosey Professor and Dean Emeritus of the Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering) are affiliated researchers. Read More

Student Spotlight - Antwane Mason (Class of 2013)

This is part of a series of student spotlights for the Reilly Dual-Degree Arts & Letter/Engineering Program.

Author: Antwane Mason (Computer Science and Japanese)
Spring 2013

Antwane Mason recently received the honor of second place with the prize of $1500 in a curriculum development competition sponsored by the Center for Minorities and People with Disabilities in Information Technology, CMD-IT. He was also awarded the opportunity to attend this year's SIGCSE Technical Symposium.

Click here to see the whole profile.

"I believe that the Reilly Dual Degree program has broadened my thinking, which has allowed me to look beyond simply writing code, but also into thinking about how to sustain the practice of computer science in the future, which I believe is tied to increasing diversity within the field. This desire led our group to think about how to get minority groups and people with disabilities excited about computer science in introductory CS coursework."

Read more > Read More

The Reilly Center announced its Dual-Degree (DD) Reilly Scholars for 2014 on Friday, April 5 at the annual spring gathering. The Reilly Scholars Award recognizes three to four rising fifth-year students who while pursuing two majors have found ways to merge their two degrees. It is the greatest honor that the Reilly Center offers to Dual-Degree students and comes with official honors at commencement and a $1,000 award.

Awardees exemplify the highest ideals of the dual-degree program because they are using both degrees in their present endeavors and have their sights on fusing the two degrees in their future careers.

This year's awardees are Michael “Mitch” S. Kochanski, A. James Schmidt, Jonathan Schommer, and Vanessa Steger. Read More

Maj. Gen. Robert Latiff (Ret., USAF) and Patrick McCloskey have co-authored an op-ed in today's issue of the Wall Street Journal. 

The op-ed, titled "With Drone Warfare, America Approaches the Robo-Rubicon," explores the ethics of autonomous weapons systems and calls for a debate among military decision-makers, think tanks, politicians, and the public regarding both the parameters for research and the deployment of these weapons.  Read More

Student Spotlight - Breanna Stachowski (Class of 2013)

This is the first in a series of student spotlights for the Reilly Dual-Degree Arts & Letter/Engineering Program. 

Author: Breanna Stachowski 
Spring 2013

At the end of January, I received news that I had placed 3rd in the International Housewares Association Student Design Competition and would have the opportunity to present my design at the International Housewares show which took place from March 2-5.  The product I designed is called the Neat Seat, a space-saving high-chair for kids.   Read More

On February 21, 2013, the NPR program No Limits interviewed Reilly Fellow Marya Lieberman and Reilly Center Outreach Coordinator Jessica Baron to talk about the center's List of Emerging Ethical Dilemmas and Policy Issues in Science and Technology.

Click here for the podcast. Read More

This profile is part of our alumni/ae spotlights for the Reilly Dual-Degree Arts & Letter/Engineering Program. Click here to see more.

Paul Schreier, B.A. '73/ B.S. '74
Paul Schreier PR (Marketing/authoring/translating for high-tech companies)
Thalwil, Switzerland

"When I was accepted at Notre Dame, I entered the EE program primarily because of the fun I was having as a ham radio operator. However, I enjoyed so many other things – literature, music, art – that I didn’t want to give them up, and I convinced my parents to let me enter the 5-year Arts & Letters/Engineering program. It wasn’t until years later that my father became convinced it was a wise choice that had actually paid off." Read More

The John J. Reilly Center for Science, Technology, and Values announced three new faculty felllows, representing a wide array of teaching and scholarship. The fellows are Nitesh Chawla (pictured), the Frank Freimann Collegiate Associate Professor of Computer Science and Engineering; Mark McKenna, a Professor of Law and a Notre Dame Presidential Fellow in the Law School and a Fellow in the Notre Dame Program on Law & Market Behavior; and Robin Darling Young (pictured), an Associate Professor of Theology in the College of Arts & Letters. Read More

The University of Notre Dame’s College of Arts and Letters will launch a doctoral program in the Department of Anthropology, with the first cohort of students due to enroll in fall 2014.

The new program, says Susan Blum, professor and chair of the department, will focus its curriculum and training on integrative anthropology.

“The strengths of Notre Dame’s anthropology department are in its commitment to multiple approaches to understanding humanity and its diversity, willingness to face big questions, individual excellence in teaching and scholarship, exceptional mentoring of students and engagement beyond academia,” she says. Read More

Patrick J. McCloskey, a member of the Reilly Center Advisory Board, has just published an Op-Ed in the New York Times entitled “Catholic Education, In Need of Salvation."

In the piece, McCloskey and his co-author Joseph Claude Harris discuss the crisis in Catholic parochial education and suggest ways to raise money and recruit personnel in order to revitalize the system. 

In addition to being on the Reilly Center Advisory Board, Patrick J. McCloskey is a project director at the Center for Catholic School Effectiveness at Loyola University Chicago, is the author of The Street Stops Here: A Year at a Catholic High School in Harlem.

Click here for his website or here for more information about his book.