The following announcement about Fellowship of Catholic Scholars board member Catherine Ruth Pakaluk appeared at Catholic University of America’s news page.
Catherine Pakaluk, bestselling author of Hannah’s Children and a leading voice in national conversations on the family and human flourishing, will become the next executive director of The Catholic University of America’s Institute for Human Ecology.
Pakaluk will succeed Russell Hittinger, a renowned expert in Catholic social doctrine, effective Jan. 1, 2026. “Russ is one of the finest thinkers–Catholic or otherwise–working today,” said University President Peter Kilpatrick. “So many scholars owe him a debt of gratitude for his tireless work expanding our understanding of the dignity of the human person and what constitutes a healthy society.”
Pakaluk counts herself among those scholars.
“Following Russ at the IHE is profoundly meaningful to me,” she said. “It was Russ who introduced me to the mind of the Church on natural law and social thought. When I was an undergraduate in a radically secular university, he represented something novel: a model of the intellectual life uniting philosophical excellence, theological rigor, and deep faith.”
Hittinger, who will remain on faculty as a research professor in the School of Philosophy, is author of On the Dignity of Society: Catholic Social Teaching and Natural Law and emeritus professor of religion at the University of Tulsa.
Pakaluk, who holds a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard, is an associate professor of political economic thought at Catholic University’s Busch School of Business. Her widely acclaimed ethnography, Hannah’s Children: The Women Quietly Defying the Birth Dearth, is a page-turning account of American women choosing to have large families against the global trend to sub-replacement birth rates. Pakaluk has been widely quoted in major publications and outlets, including NPR, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, The Times of London, The Atlantic, Slate, and Freakanomics.
Under Pakaluk’s leadership, the IHE will continue to focus on interdisciplinary research and expanding public engagement on pressing questions of family life, economic policy, and human dignity in contemporary culture.
“I am grateful to Joseph Capizzi for launching and nurturing the IHE, and to Russell Hittinger, whose intellectual depth and clarity have been indispensable to the Institute’s identity and mission, she said. “I am eager to build on the foundation they have established, and lead the Institute into its next chapter with our outstanding faculty, staff, students, and friends.”
About the IHE
Founded in 2016, the Institute for Human Ecology (IHE) at The Catholic University of America is committed to identifying the economic, cultural, and social conditions vital for human flourishing. Drawing on the Catholic intellectual tradition, the mission of the IHE is to educate students, sponsor multidisciplinary research, advise Church leadership, and organize symposia, conferences, and lectures for the public square.