An immersive virtual reality experience that transforms participants into a single water droplet flowing through cycles of existence, an examination of the digital nomadic lifestyle culminating in an original music performance, and an exploration of e-textile wearables for the performing arts are among the 10 projects that have received Arts Integration Initiative grants for 2025.
This year, $100,000 awarded by the Hopkins Center for the Arts and the Office of the Vice Provost for Research will fund 10 student- and faculty-led projects spanning more than a dozen departments and centers, with the aim of supporting interdisciplinary projects with arts at the core while fostering faculty-student mentorship.
The program has been renewed this year after the success of an initial pilot phase which launched 33 interdisciplinary projects since 2021.
“Renewing this grant program reaffirms our commitment to championing the arts as a catalyst for collaboration and change,” says Mary Lou Aleskie, Howard Gilman ’44 Executive Director of the Hop. “These projects reflect the creative potential that emerges when disciplines intersect, and we’re excited to see how they’ll impact our community and beyond.”
Vice Provost for Research Dean Madden celebrated the contribution the arts integration grant program makes to the whole Dartmouth community.
“When we ask scientists about their career trajectories, it’s surprising how many have personal experience in the arts and related disciplines and find creativity to be central to their scientific practice, and vice versa. We found this is a good way to support projects across our academic divisions,” he says. “This program enriches the authentic, cross-disciplinary dialogue that forms the heart of the liberal arts.”
The 10 selected projects, chosen from a pool of 55 competitive applications, represent a broad spectrum of interdisciplinary arts-integrative inquiry. This year’s proposals reflect a growing interest in the intersection of the arts with wellness and medicine, as well as connections to fields such as geography, studio art, environmental studies, music, computer science, digital humanities, business, African and African American studies, and psychological sciences.
Samantha Lazar, curator of academic programming at the Hop, has administered the Arts Integration Grants program since it started in 2021. It has been exciting to see how interdisciplinary projects grounded in the arts have inspired students and faculty across the academy and have made research accessible to the public in new ways, she says.
“The public is able to tap into the arts in a visceral way, while often pure scientific data, for instance, doesn’t resonate for a lot of people,” Lazar says. “This work offers different perspectives and different ways of looking at things, not simply as a way to communicate the science, but as a way to think about the world.”
Supporting interdisciplinary creativity also encourages students to embrace their multifaceted interests, says Hermia Huang ’26, whose project is Cyber Folksongs for Digital Nomads. “As a quantitative social science and music major, I often feel split between the analytical and emotional worlds. The Arts Integration Initiative helps me bring these two versions of myself together, and I can’t wait to see how they’ll collaborate.”
2025 Arts Integration Initiative Grant Recipients
Art, Business, and Soft Power: Chad Elias, associate professor, Department of Art History and Sunglim Kim, associate professor, Department of Art History and the Department of Asian Societies, Cultures, and Languages.
Bronzed: A History of Makeup, Hair and Race in Hollywood: Desiree Garcia, associate professor and chair, Department of Latin American, Latino, & Caribbean Studies.
Medical Misogynoir: Graphic Medicine as a Tool to Raise Awareness of Medical Misogynoir Across Three Centuries in the U.S.: Shontay Delalue, senior vice president and senior diversity officer, and Vinald Francis, biomedical illustrator and graphic medicine artist, Geisel School of Medicine.
Quilting for Resilience: Stitching Together Stories of Mutual Aid from Vermont’s Floods: Sarah Kelly, research scientist in the Energy Justice Clinic at the Irving Institute for Energy and Society and a lecturer in the Department of Geography; Aletha Spang, GIS specialist, Department of Geography, and Charis Boke, lecturer, Department of Anthropology.
Vicarious: Luke Cargill ’24, Guarini ’26, master of science in computer science with concentration in digital arts.
Living Interpretations: A Digital Exploration of Ambiguity in Art: Clara Sava-Segal Guarini ’24, PhD in cognitive neuroscience, Emily Finn, assistant professor, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Georgia Nieh ’27, and Neely McNulty, curator of education, Hood Museum of Art
Under the Moving Skin: E-textile Wearables for the Performing Arts: Ivy Fu Guarini ’25.
Cyber Folksongs for Digital Nomads: A Sound Ethnography: Hermia Miaoxuan Huang ’26.
Visualizing Vermont Flooding: Mapping the White River with Drone Media: Hayden Miller ’25.
DROP: Malik Terrab ’25 and Peyton Bond ’24, intern, Department of Studio Art.
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