Notre Dame Stories

The arrest this summer of Mexican drug kingpin Rafael Caro Quintero caught the attention of Notre Dame Law School professor Jimmy Gurulé. Caro Quintero was wanted for the 1985 torture and murder of a DEA agent, a story so infamous it was recently featured in the Netflix show Narcos: Mexico. Gurulé was the prosecutor in Los Angeles who first indicted Caro Quintero, and he tells the story from an insider's perspective.

ConnSelmer is the last major manufacturer of band instruments in the United States. They were looking for ways to innovate to keep their operations in-country. That's when they received a boost from iNDustry Labs, Notre Dame's platform for collaboration between the University and local manufacturers.

The Class of 2022 valedictorian Devin Diggs joins us to talk about his Notre Dame story, and what's in store after commencement. Among other activities, Diggs worked in Dr. Jessica Payne's Sleep, Stress and Memory Lab.

On March 23rd, Ukrainian Metropolitan-Archbishop Borys Gudziak was announced as the keynote speaker at Notre Dame’s 177th commencement ceremony. Ten days earlier, Archbishop Gudziak sat down for an interview for the Henri Nouwen Now and Then podcast, produced by the Henri Nouwen Society. Henri Nouwen was a Dutch-born Catholic priest who taught psychology at Notre Dame for a time. The society that bears his name is dedicated to advancing Nouwen’s spiritual vision. In this podcast episode, which originally aired on March 13, host and Nouwen Society executive director Karen Pascal, speaks with Archbishop Gudziak about his background and his perspective on the ongoing war in Ukraine. Our sincere thanks to the Henri Nouwen Society for sharing this episode with us. To hear the full episode, visit henrinouwen.org.

After three weeks, the war in Ukraine is only becoming costlier—and deadlier—for both the militaries fighting, and the civilians caught in the middle. We spoke with Mary Ellen O’Connell, the Robert and Marion Short Professor of Law, about the international legal framework that could help bring the war to a close and deal with its aftermath.

The rollout of 5G seemed to be going along smoothly until it wasn’t. So why did the airline industry ask for a pause in some areas? And, should we expect other disruptions in the future? For answers, we turned to Nick Laneman, co-director of the Notre Dame Wireless Institute.

The Winter Olympics are here, and while they provide hours of incredible viewing for sports fans, they also offer insights into life and society. To explore the Olympics in this light, we turn to Cara Ocobock, assistant professor of anthropology. In a wide-ranging discussion, Prof. Ocobock explains what makes the Olympics so appealing, but also what needs to happen to achieve greater equality for male and female athletes. Finally, Ocobock talks about what happens to the body in extreme temperatures, citing insights from her research working with reindeer herders in northern Finland.

One of the biggest stories in the last half of 2021 was the supply chain. It seems everyone was impacted by shortages or delays in getting a product from a manufacturer to a consumer. Now that we’ve turned the page into 2022, where do we stand? To find out, we spoke with Kaitlin Wowak, associate professor of IT, analytics, and operations in the Mendoza College of Business.

The Gospel of St. Matthew records a peculiar event: a star marking the place of Jesus' birth. As the story goes, this phenomenon inspired "magi" from the East to journey to find the Christ child. But is there a way to know what the Christmas Star really was? Using various multi-disciplinary threads of information, astrophysicist Grant Mathews has developed a theory to explain what the Christmas Star may have been. He walks us through the research in this re-play of an episode from Season 1 of Notre Dame Stories.

What do you do when the officers who are supposed to protect and serve the public are the ones torturing their suspects? Not in a third-world country, but in the city of Chicago. If you're a civil rights attorney, you stand up and defend the rights of those being abused — regardless of whether the fight takes three decades, the tortured have been jailed as long as you've been alive, or you're a recent Notre Dame Law School graduate drawn to the effort. The final episode of the Proving Innocence series focuses on Jackie Wilson, who was wrongfully imprisoned for 36 years after his brother killed two Chicago police officers in 1982. Wilson and others were beaten, suffocated and shocked in a systematic torture scandal that was hidden for decades until it was exposed by civil rights crusaders who are inspiring the next generation. Wilson spoke to the Notre Dame Exoneration Justice Clinic in September.

Tour guides have been answering questions about it for years. There's a large gold crown in a case, situated by the elevators in Notre Dame's Main Building (aka, the "Golden Dome"). A plaque inside the case offers some explanation, but there's much more to know. Turns out, this crown may not be the most famous piece of royal headwear the University has received. Our story is about two crowns, one crime, and one unsolved mystery.

It's one of the biggest news stories of the month: social media and the spread of misinformation. While Facebook garnered much attention over the past several weeks, the problem of misinformation goes back far longer and is far broader than many people realize. In this episode, we chat with Tim Weninger, Frank M. Friemann Associate Prof. of Engineering. His work in this area goes back to the dawn of ISIS in the Middle East and continues today through the development of a suite of forensics tools to help fight coordinated misinformation campaigns.

Ronnie and Alex Mansour chose Notre Dame over a traditional music conservatory because the University’s music program allowed them the flexibility to do it, as Sinatra would say, their way. In this episode, Brendan O'Shaughnessy tells the story of the siblings who charted their own creative path at the University.

In this episode, Rev. Edward Malloy, C.S.C., reflects on the events of 9/11 and what followed for the campus community and himself.

Iris Seabolt was convicted of felony murder in 2004 and sentenced to 45 years in prison. Prosecutors did not accuse her of killing restaurant owner A.J. Williams, but claim she was the female lure in an intended robbery that ended in murder. The police presented no physical evidence at all in her trial. Instead, a series of witnesses claimed they heard Seabolt admit her guilt. Seabolt lost hope, so she took a plea deal. All those witnesses have since recanted, saying they were coerced into lying by a corrupt and disgraced police officer. In the fifth installment of the Proving Innocence series, Mary Rofaeil guides us through the case as the students race to exonerate Seabolt before her prison term ends next year.

In the fourth installment of the Proving Innocence series, Notre Dame law students take on the case of Leon Tyson. He was convicted of a 2015 murder in Elkhart and sentenced to 63 years in prison. The Notre Dame Exoneration Justice Clinic believes he is innocent. The case took a turn when the students and professor placed a call to the mother of a man who was also there during the crime. Her revelations intrigued the students, but the case may turn on the question of hair — witnesses said the shooter had dreadlocks, but Tyson has long had alopecia, a condition that makes him bald. Tyson team leader Mackenna Krohn guides listeners through the twists and tangles of this case. *Edited description July 21, 2021.

In the final episode of the season, we sit down with Madeline Owen, the valedictorian of the class of 2021. Madeline discusses her Notre Dame journey, and what it meant to finish that journey here, on campus.

In this episode, we look at the history of St. Joseph's Farm, a place where religious brothers cultivated land to provide fuel for the University. Today, the farm is being used to produce another kind of fuel: solar power.

In this episode, Ted Fox, former host of the With a Side of Knowledge podcast, interviews C. Fred Higgs, vice provost for academic affairs at Rice University.

The American Rescue Plan—the latest pandemic stimulus—was signed into law earlier this month and it was billed as a means to slash poverty. We discuss that proposition with Jim Sullivan, economist and co-founder of the Wilson-Sheehan Lab for Economic Opportunities.