The Kroc Institute announces seniors Alexis Doyle and Leah Landry as the recipients of the 2017 Yarrow Award in Peace Studies. Doyle is a biological sciences and peace studies supplementary major from Los Altos, CA. Landry, a political science and Spanish major with a peace studies supplementary major, comes from Glen Ellyn, IL. They will accept their awards at the Kroc Institute’s undergraduate recognition ceremony on May 19.
The Yarrow Award is given annually to peace studies undergraduates who demonstrate academic excellence and a commitment to service in peace and justice. Recipients have records of outstanding academic accomplishment in both peace studies and other academic pursuits, as well as strong histories of leadership, public service, and career goals that reflect a dedication to work for peace and justice beyond graduation.
“Alexis and Leah have demonstrated the core values of peace studies through their combination of exemplary academic achievement with a commitment to the promotion of peace and justice,” said Ernesto Verdeja, associate professor of political science and peace studies and director of undergraduate studies at the Kroc institute. “I look forward to seeing what the future holds for them, and how they will continue to advance the cause of peace.”
Alexis Doyle has been selected to the United States Rhodes Scholar Class of 2017 and will commence her studies at Oxford University in October. She is a member of Notre Dame’s Hesburgh-Yusko Scholars Program for Leadership Development and a Glynn Family Honors Program Scholar. She received the 2017 Richard J. Wood Student Community Commitment Award by Indiana Campus Compact, a partnership of higher education institutions that advances the public purpose of colleges and universities.
Doyle is a research assistant for a project designing low- and no-cost interventions that promote better food choices in school cafeteria environments through the Architecture, Health, and Sustainability Research Group on campus. She is a resident assistant in Ryan Hall and a teaching assistant for honors mathematics. She also served as co-president of the Compassionate Care in Medicine Club. Doyle is a chemistry and honors math tutor at ND’s Learning Resource Center and tutors elementary students through the Center for Social Concerns. She volunteers in the South Bend community at the Sister Maura Brannick Health Clinic. In the summer of 2016, she was a Government Relations Intern at the American Public Health Association in Washington, D.C.
In 2015, Doyle traveled to Quetzaltenango, Guatemala, for a summer service project, where she volunteered for the Primeros Pasos medical clinic, which provides residents of the rural Palajunoj Valley access to medical care. She returned to Guatemala the next summer to establish a social enterprise model centered on soap making for the valley. Doyle spent the fall 2015 semester studying abroad in Puebla, Mexico, where she interned in a local public hospital.
Following her studies at Oxford, Doyle will attend the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, where she was accepted during her sophomore year.
Leah Landry mentors detained juvenile offenders through the Reading for Life program in South Bend. On campus, she tutors First Year students in the Learning Resource Center and is a resident assistant in Farley Hall. She co-chaired this year’s Student Peace Conference at Kroc, serving also as co-chair of the Academic Committee last year, and of the Hospitality and Academic Committees during her sophomore year. For her senior thesis, Landry researched the South Bend Group Violence Intervention (GVI), a strategy to reduce group and gang gun violence in the city. Landry is a member of Phi Beta Kappa Honors Society.
Landry has done service work in Santiago, Chile, where she volunteered with Cerro Navia Joven, Los Adultos Mayores, assisting elderly adults with motor skills and self care. While in Santiago, she studied at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. Landry interned with CCS Fundraising in Chicago, IL, where she surveyed and analyzed the funding needs of nonprofits. More recently, she completed a summer internship in the Legal and Advocacy Department at Covenant House New York, working to raise awareness of homelessness, human trafficking, and broken adoptions.
After graduation, Landry will spend a year at Precious Blood Ministries for Reconciliation, a restorative justice organization, where she will work with gang members and their families in the Back of the Yards neighborhood in Chicago.
Contact: Ernesto Verdeja, everdeja@nd.edu
Originally published by at kroc.nd.edu on May 11, 2017.