Undergraduate Research Grant

Documentary Film
Ryan Calaghan, Photography and Film
Ethan Jordan, Photography and Film
Jacqueline Carter, Environmental Studies
Yit Barek, Political Science
Faculty Mentor: Mark Boulos, Photography and Film
Award:$3,000
Funding to produce an interdisciplinary Documentary using Film and Photography to explore the political and environmental status of The Richmond Sewer System. The project will shine a light on the infrastructure of the sewers and political ramifications of inactivity on an environmental threat to densely populated cities. The students will be accompanied by Mark Boulos, an Associate Professor In the Photo/Film Department as their mentor regarding political-based filmmaking.

Documentary Film
LA Ricks, Photography and Film
Arrick Wilson, Journalism
Parys Pannell, Fashion Design
Erin Wardlaw, Psychology
Kayla Hollingsworth, Business
Faculty Mentor: Sonali Gulati, Photography and Film
Award: $2,227
This documentary will be about the Black church and its impact on Black youth, particularly Black queer youth. The Black church has historically been a pillar of strength and resilience for the African American community. It has taught many black youth how to be creatives and artists in their path, especially in fashion, photography, and music. However, I will be exploring the negative consequences as well that arise from the rigid beliefs often held within these religious institutions. For Black queer youth, their sexual orientation or gender identity can clash with conservative teachings that condemn homosexuality.

Biofabric Design
Benicio Gomez, Fashion Design and Merchandising
Angela Vega Vega
Faculty Mentor: Morgan Herrin, Art Foundation
Award: $1,470
Biofabric, an innovative new material from food waste and biodegradable organisms, is becoming a highly versatile and eco-conscious textile as research progresses. Our project will feature a collection of four clothing items created with biofabrics. This will serve as a visual representation of the possibilities of biofabrics combined with our guide of written recipes and experimentation for design students to reference.

Musical Theatre Performance
Kay Williams, Theatre
Anaika Korath, Theatre And Psychology
Jimmy McGuiness, Undeclared
Amanda Prince, Communication Arts
Apple DeGeorge, Theatre And Sociology
Elayna Fairno, Theatre
Faculty Mentor: Emily Mattison, Theatre
Award: $1,500
Firebringer is a musical project during the spring semester that would help to bridge the gap between VCUTheatre students and the rest of the VCUArts department. This stylized musical about the stone age will start an initiative to bring together different members of the theatre, music, communication arts, dance, fashion design, and craft/material studies departments. Hoping to have a one weekend run in the Spring of 2024, these departments will all have a hand in creating and collaborating in the inaugural production of Doomsday Theatre Company at VCU.

Solar Decathlon Competition
Courtney Thomas, Interior Design
Kyle Sirico | Urban Studies
Ranna (Peiran) Liu | Craft and Material Studies + Environmental Studies
Tiffani Vasco | Urban and Regional Studies
Stephen Dvorak | Art Direction
Faculty Mentor: Laura Battaglia, Interior Design
Award: $3,000
Funding to support a multidisciplinary team of VCU students across all majors to enter the Solar Decathlon, which is a collegiate competition run by the U.S. Department of Energy where teams from across the world design net-zero energy, affordable solar-powered homes. We are proposing a single-family home for a lower income population.

Short Film
Teairrah Green, Photography and Film
Ellis Eckman, Sculpture
Kayana Jacobs, Fashion Merchandising
Adri Ulm, Theatre
Cole Edwards, Theatre
Nawaf Tamim, Kinetic Imaging
Aziza, Painting & Printmaking
Lareina Allred, Graphic Design
Chynia Harris, Dance & Choreography
Valerie Heymann, Psychology
Charles Valdez, Photo/Film
Elliot Crotteau, Photo/Film
Kylie Hall, Photo/Film
Kayla Davis, Photo/Film
Faculty Mentor: Sonali Gulati, Photography and Film
Award: $3,000
After many job rejections, an unemployed clinical psychologist, Adella Rankine, is hypnotized by the interviewer, Andy Kipling, the agency’s director. It questions; In what way do we subconsciously and consciously decolonize systems and spaces? And Does this come from an act of rebellion or existence? 3:01 is a short film that exposes and questions the presence of coloniality. This film is made for individuals willing to challenge the mindset of others and themselves. By providing a new perspective, we attempt to reconstruct mindsets, spaces, and films.

Garment Design
Kristina Wise, Fashion Design and Merchandising
Yan Allen Shabazz, Fashion Design Major
Matthew Idechong, Fashion Design Major
Carmella Garner, Fashion Merchandising Major
Faculty Mentor: Kimberly Guthrie, Fashion Design and Merchandising
Award: $3,000
The goal of this research project is to create a prototype of a safety vest from eco-friendly sustainable materials for construction workers exposed to heavy traffic. The garment’s materials will be effective for workers in various conditions as well as solve issues regarding size inclusivity in design. The vest will be compliant with Virginia Department standards and address problems of pollution within the Personal Protective equipment industry.

Animated Film
Emily Huse, Cinema
Beau Donner, Cinema
Helene O’Brien, Interior Design
Aaron MacDonald, Communication Arts
Faculty Mentor: TyRuben Ellingson, Cinema
Award: $3,000
When a very serious man is born in the body of a clown, he must work to overcome other’s preconceived notions about him and show the world who he really is. Honk is a stop-motion short film that uses humor and metaphorical storytelling to explore what it feels like to not feel at home in your own body. The story examines what it is like to experience gender dysphoria and how the relationship between identity and body affects a person’s standing in society.

Short Film
Sofie Edwards, Cinema
Rachel Perlish, Music
Rania Ashoor, Cinema
Aurelio Babbet, Cinema
Chei-Ayn Mikell, Cinema
Faculty Mentor: Sheree Chen, Cinema
Award: $3,000
Floating is a short film about a ghost who falls in love with a balloon. As the balloon slowly deflates, it teaches the ghost the importance of letting go. A film without dialogue, Floating will be supported by an inventive original soundscape and score, and will be shot on increasingly expired film to mirror the characters’ journey toward death. This interdisciplinary project is a meditation on love and loss, aimed at making grief accessible to audiences of all ages.

Zine Creation
Courtney Te, Graphic Design
Emily Richardson, Mass Communications
Rohan Nair, Computer Science
Zoraz Haseeb, Computer Science
Faculty Mentor: David Shields, Graphic Design
Award: $896.00
Constructing a reprieve from the narrative of the Asian model minority, this zine and corresponding interactive website aim to create a safe space to reshape what it means to be Asian today.

Children’s Book
Lindsay Bowman, Art Education
Mikayla Heightshoe, English/Psychology
Faculty Mentor, Caitlin Black, Art Education
Award: $2215

To create a children’s book that merges principles of child psychology and creative learning in order to effectively communicate to children the importance of inclusion and disability awareness.

Visual History Archive
Kiara Brown, Kinetic Imaging
Achilles Braziel, Kinetic Imaging
Eunice Kim, Kinetic Imaging
Patrick Griffin, Kinetic Imaging
Ryan Alvarado, Kinetic Imaging
Sarah Cornell, Kinetic Imaging
Tony Dhillon, Kinetic Imaging
Uday Illa, Kinetic Imaging
Zachary Kennedy, Kinetic Imaging & Political Science
Faculty Mentor: Semi Ryu, Ph.D., Kinetic Imaging
Award: $3000

To create a visual history archive of art and animation through a multidisciplinary media to enforce the preservation of historical recounts of Richmond.

The Black Male Experience
Chadwick Davilsaint, Theatre
Amarachi Onyejekwe, Health, Physical Education and Exercise Science
Faculty Mentor: Tawnya Pettiford-Wates, Ph.D., Theatre
Award: $250

This research project’s goals are to gather knowledge, insight, and understanding from a range of public figures on the VCU campus and in the Richmond neighborhood, to advance the overall wellness of the Black male experience, and to place special emphasis on the development of Black men’s morals, values, belief system, and way of life.

Slipping Into Yesterday
Paris Dinh, Graphic Design
Hailey Walcott, Photography and Film
Faculty Mentor: Ayham Ghraowi, Graphic Design
Award: $2000

As an interdisciplinary collaboration between a photographer and a graphic designer, Slipping into Yesterday is a research project that will result in a photo-based installation that addresses and resolves the loss of identity in the wake of our families’ divorces.

The Way They See Me
Tajhmir Gough (Cinema & Sociology)
Nico Yanakiev (Cinema & Business)
Mary Plaku (Psychology)
Faculty Mentor, Danny Caporaletti, Cinema
Award: $3000

Film: Two Black teenagers face two sides of racism from their teacher and must learn to work together to find a solution to their isolation.

Biocentrism: An Interactive Art Installation
Teairrah Green, Photo/Film
Lareina Allred, Graphic Design
Chynia Harris, Dance + Choreography
Faculty Mentor: Sasha Waters Freyer, Photography + Film
Award: $1450

This project is an interactive installation that combines video, audio, and performance art to answer the question: How does biocentrism unify our thinking and existence?

Everything Under the Sun: Short Film
Joshua Arroyo Cinema/Spanish
Hannah Cantrell, Cinema
Elise Sunderland Cantrell, Undeclared
Celia Donnelly, Graphic Design
Kendall Felix, Theatre
Gigi Jacobsen, Cinema
Gillian Moses Cinema/English
Lilly Parker, Photography + Film
Brianna Singleton Cinema/Media Studies
Holly Smith, Cinema/English
Noah Vickers, English
Maddy Wade, Cinema
Faculty Mentor: Shawn Brixey, Kinetic Imaging
Award: $2800

Everything Under the Sun is an experimental short film that studies the hesitancy and turmoil often faced when coming to terms with one’s sexuality. Our story follows Olivia, a college sophomore raised in a highly conservative and religious household, as she works through the complicated mental, emotional, and spiritual implications of her newly discovered attraction to girls.

Social Psychology of Childbirth
Anna Kovina, Sculpture + Extended Media
KáLyn Banks Coghill, Media, Art + Text (Ph.D.)
Faculty Mentors: Corin Hewitt, Sculpture + Extended Media; Jesse Burrowes, Sculpture + Extended Media; Jack Wax,Craft + Material Studies
Award: $3000

To develop a body work, utilizing bronze and glass, that challenges the established social psychology of childbirth as reflected in its historic lack of artistic representation.

Aztec Feather Mosaics
Megan Meyer, Graphic Design/Art History
Kaijun Xie, Painting + Printmaking/Biology
Award: $3000

To explore and recreate the processes of constructing Aztec feather mosaics following Spanish contact with Latin America in the 16th century.

Zine: Art Scenes and Subcultures of Saigon
Cecilia H. Nguyen, Photography + Film
Colin V. Nguyen, Interdisciplinary Studies
Yejin Lee, Graphic Design
Faculty Mentor: Jonathan Molina Garcia
Award: $3000

Our project will explore the different art scenes and subcultures of Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City), Vietnam. In our research, we will craft an intriguing and involved narrative surrounding this region of the country through a collection of interviews and portraits that will be compiled into a zine.

Impermanence: Multimedia Publication
Barrett Reynolds, Photography + Film
Fiona McMichael, Graphic Design/Painting + Printmaking
Celia Donnelly, Graphic Design
Faculty Mentor: Nicole Killian, Graphic Design
Award: $3000

To create a multimedia publication including illustration, poetry, photography, and collage exploring the materiality of the body. The students’ work will encapsulate ideas surrounding the impermanence of the human body in relation to time, as well as express the physiological
comparisons between the human form and one’s environment.

Material Sourcing and Reuse: Local Urban Wood for Student Use
Kristen Wheatley, Craft and Material Studies
Faculty Mentor: Keenan Rowe, Craft and Material Studies
Award: $2995

By establishing relationships with the City of Richmond, the James River Parks System, and the Virginia Department of Forestry, each organization will donate trees that have been removed or fallen on their land to the VCU Craft and Material Studies Department Wood Area. Using the provided funds, researchers will organize milling demonstrations with hired portable millworkers to mill the trees and educate students about lumber processing. We will then transport the wood to be dried in purchased kiln space. Following completion, the lumber will be transported to the Wood Area for use by students for Furniture Design Projects. The result will be a more financially accessible program and a more environmentally responsible source of wood.

Noises Off

This group of Theatre Performance majors plans to produce 6 shows of the comedic farce Noises Off. They want to truly research how comedy is used in everyday life. Therefore they came up with fundraising plans that will investigate comedic coping while also raising money for the show, such as pieing, a stand-up comedy night, a scavenger hunt and an awkward family photo contest. 

Award- $3000

Caroline Mae Woodson, double major in Theatre Performance and Psychology, Creative Writing minor

Sam Heller

Love, Mai

By researching and learning more about Buddhism and Vietnamese culture, this team will create a short film entitled Love, Mai, complete with a screenplay and all elements of pre and post production in filmmaking. This project will help VCU students of differing backgrounds and interests collaborate on ideas of motherhood, sisterhood, and grief. In creating and distributing this film, they hope it will challenge and affect people’s views of Asian-Americans. A main goal of this project is to give more humanity to Asian lives and to depict them as full, fleshed out characters. They want to push forward a new narrative of the diasporic experience and show Asian lives through a different lens, a main character lens.

Award- $2,950

Danielle Phan, Cinema

Aerin Fortes, English and Cinema

Ashley-Nicole Meadows, Cinema

Michael Nolan, Cinema

Camden Walent, Cinema

Shawn Bond, Cinema

Cheryl Anne Fries, Cinema

Alexiana James, Dance and Cinema

Hannah Cantrell, Cinema

Stephen Ingram, Cinema

Amani Hagmagid, Cinema

Terre Nguyen, Cinema

Jordyn Roberts, Mass Communications

Colton Johnson, Cinema

Alex Bagoly, Cinema

Faculty Mentor- J. M. Tyree

One Wing

One Wing is a short film revolving around feelings of grief, isolation, and new beginnings. It focuses on the specific period of grief that occurs before the loved one being mourned has passed away. The intended outcome of the project is to exhibit a strong father-daughter relationship in film and to display the pain and resilience required in the face of terminal illness and new beginnings. 

Award- $1,550

Gillian L Moses, Cinema

Rachel Christina, Cinema and Mass Communication

Brianna Singleton, Cinema

Carlos Chavez, Cinema

Madeline Wade, Cinema

Noah Vickers, English

Stuart Smith, Cinema 

Faculty Mentor- Danny Caporaletti

“Chữ và Lời” (Letter and Word)

Society is created and bonded through the way Vietnamese address each other using “tiếng Việt.” Drilling into this aspect, as an interdisciplinary collective of Vietnamese artists, this team is fascinated to research the nuanced and complicated connection that “tiếng Việt” brought up among Vietnamese-Americans on America’s soil. Together as inheritors of such a rich language, they aspire to preserve the Vietnamese’s handwritten script, its traditional folklore and to create a connection to our culture and its people through the project by creating a kinetic sculpture that involves Vietnamese text, wood, sedge mats and traditional bamboo weaving technique.

Award- $2,850

Hien Nguyen, Sculpture, Art History minor and Craft minor 

Quynh Nguyen, Graphic Design

Faculty Mentor- Anthony Nguyen

Eden, North Carolina

In 1967, the three small towns of Draper, Spray, and Leaksville, N.C, were merged into one and optimistically named Eden. The town is representative of the American Dream- an “Eden” belonging to hard-working Americans. However, in the wake of corporate restructuring, it has become much less of a paradise than the name suggests.  With this grant the team will be able to create a comprehensive collection of portraits of the town and its residents compiled into a book, of which a copy will be donated to the Eden Public Library. They also plan to give back to the Eden community by hosting free photography workshops for children to expand and inspire their creativity.

Award- $3,000

Kayleigh MacDonald, Photography + Film 

Elise Wojtowicz: Photography + Film and Art Education

Faculty Mentor- Mark Boulos

Stress and Strain

Stress and strain as well as tension and compression are terms with a specific engineering meaning that are also used in social context. These concepts unite on a physical and cellular level as well as on a larger social and psychological level. Making physical and biological ideas more approachable in an artistic format is important to this team. The overall outcome of this piece is to create a visual and sound piece that explores the patterns and relationships that form in non-Newtonian fluids. They hope to offer more sensory experiences than in a typical gallery setting, with interactive visual, tactile, and auditory pieces and works that connect people.

Award- $2,150

Niki Jiang, Sculpture and Craft minor

AV, Biomedical Engineering major and Math minor, who also studies Product

Innovation with the da Vinci center

Sustainable Production Methods

As a duo, this team is interested in creating sustainable products through alternative means of production. Previously, they conducted research and collected information on how to create paper using recycled materials and inks using plants, fruits, and vegetables as a way to make art sustainably. They aim to create various products that include but are not limited to: posters/flyers, books, zines, stationery, and sculptures using their made materials. Their intended outcome is an exhibition showing a collection of varying production methods and ideas that culminate into an array of sustainable products and environmentally conscious practices. This team plans to make an additional manifesto of their findings that will be created and published for the exhibition that people can take with them, made through their sustainable production methods.

Award- $606.48

Shayla Pham, Graphic Design and Painting & Printmaking minor

Wes Ramsey, Graphic Design

Faculty Mentor- Brooke Inman

PHYSARUM

Physarum will be an artist book focused on slime mold, fractals, and community care. They plan to draw on disabled and queer practices of found family and mutual aid to create a manifesto of interdependence as survival strategy. The artist book will also serve as a toolkit, offering cards to guide and inspire discussions around reciprocity and care in relationships and instructions to use them, encouraging the reader to create their own community ecosystem.

Award- $1,428

Syd Lewin, Sculpture and Extended Media

Faculty Mentor- Emily Sara