John Staud, Ph.D.

John Staud currently serves as Senior Director of Pastoral Formation and Administration of the University of Notre Dame’s ACE program.  He did his undergraduate work at Notre Dame, graduating in 1987 magna cum laude with degrees in Chemical Engineering and English.  Awarded a Mellon Fellowship in the Humanities, Staud completed his doctorate in English in 1992 at the University of Michigan, where he specialized in American Literature.  His scholarly activity has focused on the writings of Herman Melville, and prior to returning to Notre Dame, he taught British and American literature as an adjunct professor at Loyola University Chicago and at Jesuit high schools in Chicago and Denver.

In 1996, he returned to Notre Dame to join the leadership team of Notre Dame’s ACE program and to teach in the English department, where he continues to teach courses in American literature.  For over a decade his work with ACE has focused especially on the recruitment, selection, placement, and formation of teachers in under-resourced Catholic schools in over 30 cities across the United States. 

More recently, he has assumed responsibility for helping to lead the pastoral formation and administrative areas of ACE's growing number of initiatives.  A Fellow of the Institute for Educational Initiatives, Staud served as principal author of the final report of the Notre Dame Task Force on Catholic Education and as co-author of To Nurture the Soul of a Nation: Latino Families, Catholic Schools, and Educational Opportunity.