Month: July 2020

Before her appointment in the OMVA, Megan Leis served in the United States Navy. She earned her commission through Notre Dame’s Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps in 2011. During her Naval Service, she served as a Nuclear Surface Warfare Officer, completing tours of duty aboard USS Port Royal and USS Gerald R. Ford, including a deployment to the Arabian Gulf. Most recently, Megan served as an executive officer at the Navy’s largest enlisted engineering training facility in Great Lakes, IL. She continues to serve as a Navy Reservist.

Megan was named Notre Dame’s assistant director for military and veterans affairs in 2019. In this capacity, she formulates, organizes, and monitors inter-connected projects that advance the mission of the Office of Military and Veterans Affairs (OMVA). She is also responsible for planning and managing Storm the Stadium, a premier outreach event; the Notre Dame Warrior-Scholar Project, an academic program designed to prepare service members for the pivot from the battlefield to the classroom; and enhances the operations of the OMVA in a way that is strategic and adheres to the University’s priorities and values.

Megan holds a Bachelor of Business Administration in Information Technology Management with a Mediterranean and Middle East Studies minor from the University of Notre Dame, and a Master of Engineering Management from Old Dominion University.

She lives in South Bend with her husband, Eric, and their son.

Danielle Green was born and raised on Chicago’s South Side. She earned a basketball scholarship to the University of Notre Dame where she graduated in 1999 with a degree in psychology. After graduation, she spent two years as a teacher at the Chicago International Charter School. Danielle left her teaching job to follow the call of a childhood dream – to serve her country in the Army.

In 2002, at the age of 25, Danielle enlisted into the United States Army as an E4. Her military occupation was a military police officer. Her unit deployed to Iraq in January of 2004. On May 25, 2004, Danielle was pulling security on a rooftop when a couple of rockets whizzed past her. Immediately, Danielle reached down to grab her weapon when a rocket-propelled grenade hit her as she began to return fire. Danielle’s comrades came to her aid, carrying her to safety. When she awoke in the hospital, her master sergeant gently told her that her dominate left arm was gone and the Brigade Commander pinned on the Purple Heart.

Danielle returned to the States to begin her recovery at Walter Reed. Four months after the injury, Danielle was running a five-mile race in Central Park in New York. Sports continue to play an integral role in Danielle life. Since the injury, she has learned how to play racquetball, golf, fish, and ski with the hopes of expecting her horizons.

Danielle graduated May 17, 2008 with a master’s degree in School/Community Counseling from Saint Xavier University. She also earned a master’s degree in Educational Leadership from DePaul University in 2009. Danielle received the Pat Tillman Award for Service in 2015. She currently serves as a supervisory re-adjustment counseling therapist at the veterans’ center in South Bend, Indiana.

Although she grew up in a military family, Carissa never thought she would end up joining the service herself. But as the years passed, she realized that she felt called to join the military and to serve her country. As the daughter of a United States Marine, Carissa felt at home in the military way of life. Eventually, the countless moves, school changes, and years of new houses and new friends became the norm, and she began to find joy in the challenge of change. When the time came to look to the future, she saw that military lifestyle was an honorable one, and the pathway that provided her with the sense of duty and dedication that she desired.

Being raised in the Marine Corps taught her about the importance of servant leadership and sacrifice, and those lessons were always central to Carissa’s life. Her family always stayed together, and leaned on one another in times of deployment, trial, and hardship. She was inspired by her father’s leadership and dedication to serving his country and her mother’s commitment to family and support for her father and the dreams of her and her younger brother. In her last two years of high school (luckily spent at the same school), she watched an older friend receive a Marine Corps ROTC scholarship to his dream school. Carissa realized that she could do the same and earn the commission she desired to serve her country.

Carissa applied for the Navy ROTC scholarship, which elicited plenty of teasing from the Marines in her life, following in her grandfather’s footsteps, who served as a Navy Chief and was a big Notre Dame fan. In her application process, Carissa stumbled across the University of Notre Dame in a list of impressive Navy ROTC units. The school seemed to call to her, it had everything she wanted and more in a college, and the academic challenge, dedication to service, and uniqueness led her to fall in love with Notre Dame. She then received the ROTC scholarship to Notre Dame, followed by acceptance to the University, which she immediately accepted.

She finally stepped foot on campus for the first time in April of her senior year and found herself truly at home. Since coming to the University of Notre Dame, Carissa has found not only the home where she has lived the longest, but also a place that she feels has helped her become the person and future military officer she dreamed she’d be. She is currently studying as a Biological Sciences major with a minor in Italian Studies. The Navy ROTC unit has become a second family in her time at Notre Dame, filled with like-minded individuals working to earn the title of Ensign in the U.S. Navy and Second Lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps that support each other like a family. On campus, Carissa is a Resident Assistant in Pangborn Hall, a member of the Biology and Italian Clubs, has worked in numerous mentorship programs on campus, and has studied echolocation as a research assistant in a bioacoustics laboratory.

Carissa is service assigned Student Naval Aviator in the US Navy, and will be attending flight school after graduation. She hopes to fly V-22 Ospreys or CH-53 Sea Stallion helicopters.