Catherine O'Donnell named new associate director of the Institute of Humanities Research

Catherine O’Donnell, a professor of history in the School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies, has been appointed as the new associate director of Arizona State University's Institute for Humanities Research. With 21 years of teaching experience at ASU, O’Donnell will be working collaboratively alongside Ron Broglio, director of the Institute for Humanities Research, to develop and execute strategies, programs and projects aligned with the institute's vision and goals.

“We are delighted to have Catherine O’Donnell join our team in the associate director role,” Broglio said. “Catherine will be an excellent asset for the institute with a track record that will tremendously benefit the organization.”

O’Donnell is the author of “Elizabeth Seton: American Saint” (Cornell University Press, 2018), which was awarded the Distinguished Book Award by the Conference on the History of Women Religious, as well as the Biography Prize from the Catholic Press Association. She is also the author of “Men of Letters in the Early Republic” (Chapel Hill, 2008) and “Jesuits in the British North American Colonies” (Brill, 2020). Her articles have appeared in venues including the William and Mary Quarterly, the Journal of the Early Republic, Early American Literature and the U.S. Catholic Historian.

O’Donnell has worked in a variety of roles at ASU, most recently as Dean’s Fellow in collaboration with the College Digital Innovations team. She also co-founded the digital archive “Journal of the Plague Year: A Covid-19 Archive” with Mark Tebeau, associate professor at the School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies.

O’Donnell has also served on the board of the Arizona Council of History Education for grades K–12 and is on the Executive Council of the American Catholic Historical Association. Before joining ASU, O’Donnell was a National Endowment for the Humanities postdoctoral fellow at the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture in Williamsburg, Virginia. She currently teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on early American History and the Atlantic World at ASU.