Before the pandemic, we were the show that invited scholars, makers, and professionals out to brunch for informal conversations about their work, and we look forward to being that show again one day. But for now, we’re recording remotely to maintain physical distancing.

It's still a pretty fantastic job.

If you’ve listened to any of our first 50 or so episodes, you may have heard host Ted Fox say at the end that “With a Side of Knowledge is a production of the Office of the Provost” here at Notre Dame. You also may have wondered:

What exactly is a provost? If so, it’s your lucky day.

The provost is the University’s chief academic officer. And we’ve chosen this episode, our season four premiere, to tell you that because you’re about to hear from Notre Dame’s new provost, Marie Lynn Miranda.

Marie Lynn succeeded Tom Burish on July 1, but she spent the several months before her official start date getting to know her new university and helping Notre Dame navigate the myriad challenges presented by the coronavirus.

Like so many here and elsewhere, a lot of Marie Lynn’s time these days continues to be devoted to how to best meet these challenges. But as she noted in the course of our conversation, she doesn’t want the demands of the moment to keep Notre Dame from also attending to its broader mission as a university.

We thought about this interview in much the same way, wanting to give you a chance to get to know Marie Lynn Miranda the award-winning teacher, the founder of the Children’s Environmental Health Initiative, and most definitely the person, in addition to the chief academic officer at Notre Dame.

That meant talking to her about not only what she could take from being provost at Rice University during Hurricane Harvey and apply to leading during a pandemic, but also about why she loves her dogs so much. We covered her ongoing and active research in public health—including an Indiana COVID-19 registry you can find linked below—as well as the time she quoted A League of Their Own to her son’s Little League team. We also discussed institutional diversity and inclusion … and how she still trades emails with Coach K at Duke.

As for her Notre Dame story, that actually started some 60 years ago.

LINKS

• Research Study: Indiana COVID-19 Registry
• Episode Transcript