University of Notre Dame faculty members Margot Fassler, Sherif Girgis, Brad Gregory and Prashant Kamat have been inducted into the American Academy of Sciences and Letters in recognition of their outstanding scholarly achievement.
Fassler, the Keough-Hesburgh Professor Emerita of Music History and Liturgy; Girgis, a professor of law; Gregory, a professor of history; and Kamat, the Rev. John A. Zahm Professor of Science; were recognized during an investiture ceremony on November 12 at the historic Decatur House in Washington, D.C.
They join a prestigious list of AASL members including Salman Rushdie, Jonathan Haidt, Steven Koonin, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Steven Pinker, Akhil Reed Amar and Nobel laureate scientists Arieh Warshel, Jennifer Doudna and David W.C. MacMillan.
Fassler is renowned for her work at the intersection of musicology, liturgical studies and theology and is a specialist in sacred music. She is a member of the North American Academy of Liturgy, a former president of the Medieval Academy of America, a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and an honorary member of the American Musicological Society. Her 2010 book “The Virgin of Chartres: Making History through Liturgy and the Arts” was awarded both the ACE/Mercers’ Award and the Otto Gründler Prize.
Girgis, who teaches constitutional law, is the author of “Debating Religious Liberty and Discrimination,” among other works. His work in constitutional law and theory has appeared in venues including the Columbia Law Review, the New York University Law Review, the American Journal of Jurisprudence and the Harvard Law Review Forum. Prior to his academic career, he clerked for both U.S. Court of Appeals D.C. Circuit Judge Thomas B. Griffith and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito.
A historian of Western Europe in the Reformation era, Gregory has analyzed the effects of early modern religious disagreement and religiopolitical conflict in the 16th and 17th centuries, as well as in the long-term shaping of Western modernity up to the present. His books have been awarded numerous prizes, including the Gustave O. Arlt Award in the Humanities of the Council of Graduate Schools, the John Gilmary Shea Prize of American Catholic Historical Association and the Thomas J. Wilson Prize of Harvard University Press.
Kamat’s research aims to elucidate the mechanistic and kinetic details of charge transfer processes in nanostructured assemblies with an objective to improve energy conversion efficiencies. He is a fellow of numerous societies, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Chemical Society. Among other honors, he has won the Richard E. Smalley Award of The Electrochemical Society and the Henry H. Storch Award in Energy Chemistry of the American Chemical Society.
Four Notre Dame faculty were also invited to join the academy in 2024: Gary A. Anderson, the Hesburgh Professor of Catholic Thought; Paolo Carozza, a professor of law and concurrent professor of political science; Richard Garnett, the Paul J. Schierl Professor of Law and a concurrent professor of political science; and Christian Smith, the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Sociology.
The American Academy of Sciences and Letters promotes scholarship and honors outstanding achievement in the arts, sciences and learned professions. It supports learning by encouraging the exchange of ideas within academia and in society at large, and by sponsoring occasions for scholarly interaction and providing platforms for the presentation and dissemination of scholarship in the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, mathematics and engineering.
Contact: Carrie Gates, associate director of media relations, c.gates@nd.edu, 574-993-9220
Originally published by at news.nd.edu on November 19, 2025.