Research

IAHI’s current portfolio encompasses 14 core research projects and initiatives involving 54 faculty and research collaborators, including 51 IU-affiliated participants and three international university partners. The portfolio reaches across 12 IU units, with especially strong participation from the School of Liberal Arts (18 faculty), Herron School of Art + Design (8), School of Science (5), School of Education (3), and McKinney School of Law (3). Additional collaborators come from Medicine, Luddy, Public Health, Lilly, Social Work, O’Neill, the Jacobs School of Music, University Library, SEIRI, and IU Columbus.

IAHI’s current work is organized through three cores: STEAM+, Intersect, and Citizenship, Democracy, and Justice. STEAM+ grows from the interdisciplinary environmental research developed through Rivers of the Anthropocene, Cultural Ecologies, and The Anthropocene Household; it now supports projects such as INSECt, Anthropocenes, and the One Health research cluster. Intersect extends the institute’s work in digital humanities, cultural collections, and public scholarship through DAIL, the New Humanities Lab, and the Great Marble Map of Rome. Citizenship, Democracy, and Justice carries forward the community-engaged research, civic education, and public programming established through Cultural Ecologies, Art+Ethics, and related initiatives.

STEAM+ is IAHI’s transdisciplinary research core dedicated to advancing scholarship at the intersection of the sciences, humanities, and arts. It operates from the premise that complex challenges—environmental disruption, technological transformation, public health, and sustainability—cannot be adequately addressed within isolated disciplinary frameworks. STEAM+ supports research that integrates scientific investigation with historical analysis, ethical reasoning, cultural interpretation, and creative practice, ensuring that diverse methodologies and perspectives shape research design from the outset. Rather than positioning the humanities as supplementary, STEAM+ embeds them directly within interdisciplinary teams, strengthening problem framing, systems analysis, and public engagement.

Faculty and units: Christine J. Picard and Meghan R. Barrett (Biology, School of Science); Gabriel M. Filippelli (Earth and Environmental Sciences, School of Science; Environmental Resilience Institute); Jerome Dumortier (O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs); and Jason M. Kelly (History, School of Liberal Arts; IAHI). This project also includes significant student engagement at the graduate level.

INSECt is a global, transdisciplinary research initiative organized around a simple but underdeveloped insight: insects are among nature’s most efficient recyclers, yet the research architectures surrounding insect agriculture remain fragmented across biology, environmental science, economics, ethics, and public policy. As climate disruption, soil degradation, and waste accumulation intensify, insect-based systems are increasingly recognized as viable components of circular agrifood economies. However, scientific viability alone does not produce adoption. Questions of cultural legitimacy, regulatory frameworks, economic modeling, welfare standards, and environmental systems integration determine whether such systems scale or stall.

Support from the National Science Foundation for the period May 2025 through April 2028.

Faculty and units involved: Phaedra S. Corso (Health Policy, Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health; IU Research); Jason M. Kelly (History, School of Liberal Arts; IAHI); Christine J. Picard (Biology, School of Science); Stephen L. Boehm II (Psychology, School of Science); Lasana D. Kazembe (Urban Teacher Education, School of Education; Africana Studies); Emily S. Beckman (Medical Humanities and Health Studies, School of Liberal Arts); David M. Craig (Religious Studies, School of Liberal Arts); Kenzie Latham-Mintus (Sociology, School of Liberal Arts); Peter H. Schwartz (Medicine; Center for Bioethics, School of Medicine); Aaron M. Ganci (Visual Communication Design, Herron School of Art + Design); Stefan A. Petranek (Photography, Herron School of Art + Design); and Chia-Ying James Lin (Biomedical Engineering and Informatics, Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering; Orthopaedic Surgery, School of Medicine).

The Collaborative, Interdisciplinary, and Transdisciplinary Academy (CITA) develops institutional infrastructure for team-based research that crosses disciplinary, professional, and institutional boundaries. It addresses a structural condition within contemporary research universities: while complex societal challenges increasingly require integrative approaches, most faculty receive little formal preparation in collaborative design, shared problem framing, or transdisciplinary research methods. CITA responds by organizing structured training, facilitation, and embedded support that professionalizes interdisciplinary research practice.

Faculty and units involved: Amrita Haughn (Visual Communication Design, Herron School of Art and Design); Sydney W Craig (Foundation Studies Program, Herron School of Art and Design)

This project examines how intercultural understanding is intentionally cultivated within higher education art and design programs, with particular attention to how faculty structure critique environments and how artificial intelligence supports intercultural engagement in virtual exchange settings. Using a global, cross-institutional design-based research approach, the study engages international faculty collaborators in co-design workshops to develop and refine culturally responsive critique frameworks and AI-supported pedagogical tools. Data collection includes observations of virtual exchange sessions, in-depth faculty interviews, reflective journals, and analysis of instructional artifacts, providing insight into how educators navigate cultural difference, shape participation, and make pedagogical decisions in real time. Situated at the intersection of art and design education, intercultural learning, social science, and emerging technologies, the project advances both scholarly knowledge and applied practice by generating evidence-based design principles, culturally responsive critique frameworks, AI-supported rubrics, and facilitation strategies. The work also contributes to the development of a “Global Design Critique Observatory,” a scholarly and educational resource for documenting, analyzing, and disseminating effective approaches to intercultural critique and virtual exchange, while positioning the institution as a leader in globally engaged design education and responsible innovation in artificial intelligence.

Funded through an IAHI Collaborative research grant.

Faculty and units involved: Brittany Garvin (Science Education, School of Education); Tina S. O'Neal (Special Education, Urban Teacher Education, School of Education); Debbie Oesch-Minor (English, School of Liberal Arts; Institute for Engaged Learning)

This project addresses a documented gap in STEM teacher preparation by establishing an Accessible Innovation Hub (AIH) within IU Indianapolis’s newly renovated science laboratory, creating a structured, practice-based environment in which preservice STEM educators engage with AI-enabled and assistive technologies. Embedded within the campus-wide summer course EDUC-K 420/K510, Assistive Technology in Special Education, the initiative provides opportunities for applied coursework, guided experimentation, and critical analysis of AI affordances, limitations, bias, and ethical implications. The AIH emphasizes language access and accessibility through tools such as text-to-speech, speech-to-text, automated captioning, and multilingual translation, enabling students to work within learning environments that more closely reflect the complexity and diversity of contemporary STEM classrooms. Using a mixed-methods research design, the project examines changes in preservice educators’ technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK), confidence, and ethical awareness through pre- and post-assessments, focus group interviews, and analysis of course artifacts, including critical reflections and ePortfolios. The work generates validated instructional models, assessment tools, and learning progressions for inclusive and equity-centered AI integration while producing implementation evidence that strengthens the foundation for future federal funding and positions the institution as a leader in accessible, responsible, and innovative STEM teacher preparation.

Funded through an IAHI Collaborative research grant.

Faculty and units involved: Estela Ene (English, School of Liberal Arts); Samuel Kahn (Philosophy, School of Liberal Arts)

This project investigates how instruction involving generative artificial intelligence (genAI) influences graduate students’ academic writing and their engagement with emerging AI-supported writing practices. Using a controlled study in ENG-G513, Academic Writing for Graduate Students, participants complete standard academic writing assignments while a genAI platform produces parallel texts for comparison. One group receives feedback that incorporates genAI-informed guidance, while a comparison group receives standard instructional feedback, allowing the researchers to examine differences in writing quality, linguistic features, and rhetorical effectiveness. The study also considers how exposure to genAI shapes students’ understanding of authorship, academic integrity, and the ethical use of emerging technologies in scholarly communication. Bringing together applied linguistics, philosophy, and AI ethics, the project contributes to interdisciplinary scholarship on technology-mediated learning while generating evidence-based pedagogical strategies for the responsible integration of genAI into graduate education. Findings also provide a foundation for future external funding proposals focused on artificial intelligence, academic writing, and higher education.

Funded through an IAHI Collaborative research grant.

Faculty and units involved: Jason Palamara (Music Technology; Machine Musician Lab, Herron School of Art and Design); Lowell Isaac (Drawing and Illustration, Herron School of Art and Design); Arda Turhan (Jacobs School of Music, IUB). This project also includes significant student engagement at the graduate level.

This project builds on the Emergency Musical Hologram (EMH) initiative, which explores perceptible collaboration between autonomous musical AI systems and projected human performers, by advancing the work into a reusable, real-time 3D performance environment. In place of fixed video documentation, the project develops a persistent digital platform that can evolve across performances, research projects, and pedagogical contexts. Working with animator Lowell Isaac and game artist and composer Arda Turhan, the team creates expressive digital avatars for musicians and dancers that respond dynamically to live performers and autonomous musical systems such as AVATAR and IMMPs. The research examines how synthetic visual embodiment influences audience perceptions of AI agency, musical intention, and human–AI collaboration, contributing to emerging scholarship at the intersection of performance, immersive media, and human-centered artificial intelligence. By integrating music performance, animation, game technologies, and AI research, the project establishes durable creative and research infrastructure for the Machine Musician Lab while supporting future performances, teaching, and interdisciplinary scholarship. The work also strengthens the foundation for sustained research activity and competitive external funding proposals, including opportunities through the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Science Foundation.

Funded through an IAHI Collaborative research grant.

Faculty and units: Jason M. Kelly (History, School of Liberal Arts; IAHI), with former IAHI postdoc Fiona P. McDonald (Anthropology, University of British Columbia Okanagan).

Anthropocenes is a cooperative tabletop simulation that translates environmental humanities research, systems analysis, and governance questions into structured play. Developed through repeated testing and revision, the project asks participants to make decisions under conditions of environmental change, competing values, institutional limits, and uneven consequences. It is designed for classroom and public use and provides a form of experiential learning in which scientific knowledge, historical interpretation, ethical reasoning, and collective decision-making become mutually visible. Supported by the Wenner-Gren Foundation and IU New Frontiers, it continues the institute’s long-standing effort to convert interdisciplinary research into teaching materials and public forms that can travel beyond a single course or event.

This is currently in press with Wilfred Laurier University Press.

Intersect is IAHI’s arts and humanities research core focused on scholarship that engages digital and technological environments as sites of humanistic inquiry. It operates from the position that emerging technologies—artificial intelligence, three-dimensional modeling, digital archives, data systems, and computational tools—are not merely technical instruments but cultural and interpretive frameworks that reshape how knowledge is produced, preserved, and understood. Intersect supports arts and humanities projects in which digital methods are integral to the research itself, whether through modeling cultural heritage at scale, examining the epistemological implications of AI, experimenting with minimal and microcomputing practices, or developing new forms of public-facing humanities scholarship. Rather than treating technology as a service layer, the core situates it within longstanding humanistic traditions of interpretation, critique, and creative practice. Through initiatives such as the Great Marble Map of Rome, Digital and AI Literacy, and the New Humanities Lab, Intersect strengthens institutional capacity for digitally intensive arts and humanities research while advancing IU 2030’s commitments to innovative research, interdisciplinary collaboration, and public engagement.

Faculty and units involved: Muhammed Hasan (Computer Science, Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering); Emily S. Beckman (Medical Humanities and Health Studies, School of Liberal Arts); Jason M. Kelly (History, School of Liberal Arts; IAHI); Liz Thill (Classical Studies, School of Liberal Arts); Aaron Dusso (Political Science, School of Liberal Arts); Grant Fore (SEIRI); Danka Maric (SEIRI). This project includes a fudned graduate research assistant.

Improving Data and AI Literacy of Liberal Arts Students through Project-based Interventions in Liberal Arts Courses (DAIL) is an engaged student learning research initiative integrating data science and artificial intelligence into Liberal Arts curricula without altering disciplinary integrity. The project addresses a structural gap: students in history, political science, classical studies, medical humanities, and related fields increasingly enter professions shaped by AI systems and data-driven decision-making, yet they receive little systematic training in how such systems operate, how data are structured, or how algorithmic reasoning reshapes knowledge.

The National Science Foundation supports the project for the period October 2024 through October 2026.

Faculty and units involved: Andrew Findley (Classical Studies and Art History, School of Liberal Arts; IAHI); Jack McKivigan (History, School of Liberal Arts); Jason Palomara (Music Technology, Herron School of Art and Design); Aimee Zoeller (Sociology, IU Columbus). This project has extensive undergraduate student involvement and community engagement.

The New Humanities Lab, directed by Dr. Andrew Findley, supports faculty-led arts and humanities research that engages digital methods, experimental formats, and public scholarship. The Lab provides structured space for collaborative research projects and integrates undergraduate researchers into ongoing faculty scholarship. One of the Lab’s central initiatives is the development of faculty-led podcast series. Undergraduate researchers work directly with faculty teams to produce audio episodes based on active research projects. Students receive training in recording, editing, audio production, and research translation. Faculty provide the intellectual framework and scholarly content; students assist in shaping episodes for public dissemination. The Lab coordinates production workflows, equipment access, and project management.

Faculty and units involved: Elizabeth W. Thill (Classical Studies and History, School of Liberal Arts); Jason M. Kelly (History, School of Liberal Arts; IAHI); Dan Johnson (Geography, School of Liberal Arts; Polis Center); Jere Odell (Center for Digital Scholarship, University Library); Kristi Palmer (Dean, University Library). This project works with the corporate partner Dockive.

The Marble Map of Rome (Forma Urbis Romae), a third-century plan of the ancient city carved on marble slabs, survives in fragments documented through drawings, photographs, measurements, catalog records, and scientific analyses. The IAHI supported high-resolution three-dimensional scans in 2019 to capture geometric and surface data that allow scholars to extract detailed information. They allow the team to study fragment joins and carving techniques, reconsider earlier identifications, and recover evidence about the architecture and urban organization of ancient Rome. The project is developing an interoperable framework that links each fragment to its 3D model, legacy identifiers, visual records, material analyses, and related fragments in other collections. Its scholarly significance extends beyond the reconstruction of a major ancient artifact: it establishes methods for integrating physical, visual, scientific, and interpretive evidence across fragmented archaeological collections. Its outputs will include integrated digital records, persistent-identifier reconciliation, and reusable documentation for libraries, archives, and cultural-heritage projects.

IMLS supports the project for the period September 2026 through August 2028.

Citizenship, Democracy, and Justice is IAHI’s arts and humanities research core focused on the historical, ethical, and cultural dimensions of civic life. The core concentrates on how democratic societies negotiate conflict, remember violence, construct authority, and educate citizens. Research in this cluster examines war and its moral legacies, the formation of civic character, the role of storytelling and performance in public memory, and the material and institutional structures that shape public discourse. Projects such as Justice and War in American History, Civics Kits, Speculative Play and Just Futurities, and Global Ethics, Civic Character, and Leadership treat civic engagement not as outreach but as a field of sustained inquiry grounded in history, philosophy, literature, and the arts. The core situates arts and humanities scholarship within the long intellectual traditions that have examined governance, conflict, memory, and civic formation, extending those traditions into contemporary public life.

Faculty and units involved: Jason M. Kelly (History, School of Liberal Arts; IAHI); Lasana Kazembe (Urban Education, School of Education); Stefan Petranek (Photography, Herron School of Art and Design); Pam Napier (Design, Herron School of Art and Design); Helen Sanematsu (Design, Herron School of Art and Design); Sammy Nyarko (Earth Sciences Education, School of Science); Carrie Hagan (Civil Practice Clinic, McKinney School of Law); Cynthia A. Baker (McKinney School of Law); Sarah Parks ( McKinney School of Law). This project includes significant community engagement.

Civics Kits is an IAHI-developed public-humanities and arts initiative organized around five themes: environment, history, knowledge, place, and artificial intelligence. Teams pairing humanists with artists or designers are creating portable kits inspired by Fluxus: physical objects, prompts, and activities that invite participants to examine how democratic life is shaped by evidence, memory, technology, locality, and shared resources. The project will generate approximately 250 physical kits and open educational materials for libraries and schools in Indiana. It will pilot their use in Indianapolis schools, libraries, and at IU Indianapolis.

The Allen Whitehill Clowes Charitable Foundation supports the project for the period January 2026 through December 2028.

Faculty and units involved: Jason M. Kelly (History, School of Liberal Arts; IAHI); Leslie Etienne (Africana Studies, School of Liberal Arts; Center for Africana Studies and Culture); Jason Aukerman (English and Ray Bradbury Center, School of Liberal Arts; Gemmicka Piper (University Library). This project involves numerous faculty and students in its programs and is deeply engaged with the community.

Speculative Play and Just Futurities is a four-year residency program that supports emerging scholars and creators working at the intersection of speculative narrative, creative practice, and social justice. The program establishes eight residencies per year, bringing writers, game designers, artists, theorists, and media creators to IU Indianapolis to develop work that engages questions of justice through speculative methods. The project treats speculative practice as a method for examining social arrangements and imagining more just futures, not simply as a literary or artistic genre. Its institutional significance lies in the integration of research, creative activity, classroom learning, public programming, and community engagement.

The Mellon Foundation supports the project from January 2023 to December 2026.

Faculty and units involved: Kelly E. Hayes (Religious Studies, School of Liberal Arts); Knut Graw (Center for Advanced Studies in the Humanities and Social Sciences, Friedrich Alexander University, Erlangen, Germany)

This project addresses growing polarization and increasingly complex global challenges by examining how communities cultivate consensus, connection, and collaboration across social, ideological, and religious difference. The research focuses on intentional communities that have developed sophisticated practices for collective decision-making and explores the extent to which these approaches may be adapted to broader secular and institutional contexts. Using preliminary comparative research at two sites—the New Meadow Run Bruderhof in Farmington, Pennsylvania, which practices collective discernment rooted in Anabaptist traditions, and Tamera in Portugal, a New Age community that employs “Forum” dialogue methods—the project analyzes how distinct communities structure dialogue, negotiate disagreement, and sustain social cohesion. The researchers present emerging findings at three international conferences to refine the project’s conceptual framework, gather scholarly feedback, and strengthen international research networks. This work establishes the foundation for a major, multi-year research initiative examining consensus-building practices across multiple sites and supports the development of at least one competitive external grant proposal, positioning the institution to contribute meaningfully to interdisciplinary scholarship on dialogue, civic cohesion, and collaborative problem-solving across difference.

Funded through an IAHI Collaborative research grant.