The University of Notre Dame’s mission embraces a commitment to “cultivate in its students not only an appreciation for the great achievements of human beings, but also a disciplined sensibility to the poverty, injustice, and oppression that burden the lives of so many. The aim is to create a sense of human solidarity and concern for the common good that will bear fruit as learning becomes service to justice.”
Since LEO’s beginning, undergraduate students have played an integral part in its work. To deepen its response to Notre Dame’s mission, LEO equips Notre Dame undergraduates with the skills to create and use evidence to end poverty through the Poverty Research Fellows (PRF) program.
And who better to share the experience of our summer interns than the Poverty Research Fellows themselves? Read about the summer journeys of a few of these outstanding students:
From Tia:
I’m from Mumbai, India, and Lewis Hall is my home on-campus. I’m incredibly lucky to have been the Policy & Impact Federal Relations intern for LEO this summer. As the only intern based in the capital, my experience has been uniquely enriching, providing me with an in-depth understanding of federal policy and its intersection with poverty alleviation.
Interestingly, my internship began with me “shopping” for different events to attend across D.C.’s most prominent institutions, think tanks, and Congressional committee hearings that provided a platform to raise concerns and share evidence-based work tackling issues of poverty, homelessness, and health inequalities. However, I soon ran into a dilemma. These events ranged from the Heritage Foundation to the Brookings Institution, two extremes of the political sphere and how they view evidence-based approaches to poverty reduction. In my meeting with Rachel, I asked her how I should represent LEO and remain bipartisan when I’m in a room full of people with views leaning towards one side, and she said, “at LEO, we’re partisan only towards people in poverty.” Her response helped me define my LEO experience in D.C., making it a period of substantial personal growth for me. I developed a greater appreciation for the complexities of policy-making intertwined with the dedication required to drive social change.
Growing up in Mumbai, India, I experienced first-hand the inequalities in resources available to people around me, that often left them trapped in a poverty cycle. From a young age, I began asking questions about solving these inequalities and started volunteering at local organizations. For a long time, I believed that the focus on poverty reduction was underwhelming; however, working at LEO has taught me that there is a whole community of people who are as determined and curious as I am to understand and fight poverty through methods that are proven to be successful. One of the highlights of my internship was an initial partner meeting I had the opportunity to attend. Listening to the organization’s director, who had personally experienced homelessness, share his story was incredibly moving. His journey from homelessness to leadership illuminated the profound personal narratives that encourage individuals to serve their communities, and inspired me to continue my journey in this space.
From Edgar:
Initially, I was not thrilled about the idea of spending my summer in South Bend alone. For the first time in my life, I was living alone. However, embarking on my internship at LEO has been a transformative journey. It has sparked a profound period of self-discovery, reshaping my understanding of success and fulfillment.
Raised in a context where career options were narrowly defined—limited to the corporate world or entrepreneurship—I had internalized a view of success that prioritized practical achievements over passion. College continued in a similar way, surrounded by peers from similar backgrounds, where discussions revolved around job applications and deadlines rather than passions and dreams. I must admit that this is one of the major challenges of being a Latin-American student at Notre Dame.
The past month at LEO has dramatically broadened my horizons. It offered me an eye-opening exposure to the world of research, where I learned that careers could be built around genuine interests and societal contributions, rather than achieving financial success. Meeting individuals who are passionately engaged in their work and driven by a desire to contribute positively to the world has been incredibly inspiring.
This internship has introduced me to new career possibilities and challenged my preconceived notions about what it means to be successful. It revealed a wide range of pathways where personal satisfaction and professional achievement meet around a core of meaningful impact. This shift in perspective is leading me to reconsider what I want my future to look like. I now see the importance of aligning my work with my values, and I am eager to explore how my own skills and passions can contribute to the needs of the world.
This experience has taught me the importance of seeking out opportunities that resonate deeply with my growing understanding of myself and the impact I hope to have. While I am still uncertain about what the future holds and acknowledge that I may end up in the corporate world, this experience has opened my eyes to new possibilities and connected me with amazing peers who pushed me to become the best version of myself. I am very grateful to LEO for this opportunity of self-discovery and for the incredible group of friends I have made.
From Abigail:
“If you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room.” While the attribution of this quote is disputed (it might have been Lorne Michaels, it might have been Confucious, it might have been someone along the way), its validity is unquestioned. This quote has been hanging on my bedroom wall for years. It’s the mentality that pushed me to come to Notre Dame, and the motivation that helped me stay in a major that I love but was not initially good at.
As an institution run by brilliant economists and backed by prominent philanthropists, it would be easy for LEO to claim itself as the “smartest in the room”. This is a lab operating out of a respected university with many prestigious publications and well-known faculty members. As an intern, I have certainly never felt like the smartest in the room here.
But one attribute of LEO that truly defies expectations is the mutual respect across all peoples, the immediate willingness for faculty to defer to partners and partners to defer to faculty as experts. On partner calls, I see this mutual deference with my own eyes. As respected as those at LEO are, the principal investigators and research assistants are humble enough to recognize that the true expertise in these projects comes from those serving on the ground. And the partners in question, if asked, would name the true experts as those they are serving, those experiencing poverty themselves.
I think this balance, this feeling that everyone involved is all constantly learning from one another, is part of what makes LEO work so well. As we have learned in our intern programming, real subsidiarity can be difficult in an academic setting. As a Research Operations intern, for example, most of my day-to-day work revolves around Stata and literature reviews. Luckily, the constant line of communication between LEO and its partners undergirds all aspects of the research process. Everything I do is informed by the expertise of my RA, which is informed by the expertise of the PI, which is informed by the expertise of the partners, which is informed by the expertise of those being served. This isn’t a food chain, it’s a round table where everyone is equal and yet everyone is the “smartest” according to someone else. Having a seat at the table this summer has taught me every day about economics, our country, and my own faith. I hope to never become the smartest in the room, and I know at LEO I never will be.