What Would You Fight For?


The University of Notre Dame’s award-winning What Would You Fight For? series showcases the work, scholarly achievements, and global impact of Notre Dame faculty, students, and alumni.

What Would You Fight For?

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Global Affairs

Fighting for Freedom of Thought

In 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed and Ukraine declared itself an independent state. But political independence didn’t rid the country of Soviet or communist influence....

Science and Technology

Fighting to Protect Our Country

Since 1993, the International Atomic Energy Agency has tracked 2,500 trafficking cases of nuclear material. While there has yet to be a detonation of a dirty bomb, the threat...

Health and Society

Fighting Mosquito-borne Diseases

Leading up to the 2016 summer Olympics in Brazil, Zika virus ravaged South America, and photos and videos of patients haunted the news worldwide. A year later, Zika has fallen out...

Global Affairs

Fighting to End Poverty

In Dandora, Kenya, a sprawling neighborhood in Nairobi, housing for 250,000 people is built around the city’s largest dumpsite. Life near a large trash heap exposes the...

Health and Society

Fighting for the Lives of Children

When your child is diagnosed with a rare, genetic disease, it feels like you’re rolling down a mountain, just waiting to hit rock bottom, says Doug Berns. When his daughter,...

Science and Technology

Fighting to Walk Again

March 8, 2014 was a Saturday near the end of a long, cold winter in Ohio. The high temperature that day was a brisk 46 degrees. The low, 30. The details of the weather are now...

Art and History

Fighting for Shakespeare for All

When Christy Burgess started the Robinson Shakespeare Company in 2008, the idea of the youth acting troupe one day performing in England would have been laughed off as an...

Business

Fighting for Our Veterans

At a young age, it was ingrained into Brady Quinn ’07 that it was important to respect and support the military. His father was a marine in Vietnam. His grandfathers had both...

Health and Society

Fighting for Better Cancer Detection

It seems black and white: Either you have cancer or you don’t. But for many women the answer is gray. Hazy mammogram gray. In the United States alone, there are nearly 240,000...

Law and Politics

Fighting to Protect the Innocent

“We have found you and we have given you time to enter the [gang]. You have had two opportunities to join and we will kill you if you don’t,” the note said. It was addressed...

Science and Technology

Fighting to Explore the Moon

It was the middle of the night when Clive Neal was shaken awake by his father so they could watch the first man walk on the Moon. That night, the world watched in awe as a...

Global Affairs

Fighting for Lasting Peace

Peace negotiations between the Colombian government and the country’s principal guerrillas had come to a standstill yet again. One of the longest and bloodiest civil wars in...