February 14, 2025

The Institute for Advanced Study is delighted to announce six new and renewing Research and Creative Collaboratives focused on interdisciplinary research, scholarship, and creative practice. 

Research and Creative Collaboratives represent some of the most synergistic and innovative work across the University of Minnesota system. Faculty, staff, and students from across all five campuses, alongside community members, come together to pursue interdisciplinary projects and activities that transcend departmental and collegiate structures. Collaboratives receive up to $12,000 as well as administrative support from the Institute for Advanced Study to further their work. 

Many past Collaboratives have gone on to grow into formalized ongoing events, initiatives, and programs that contribute to student learning and community engagement, including the Center for Premodern Studies, Critical Disability Studies Collective, and the Heritage Studies and Public History Graduate Program. Others have successfully pursued external grant funding to further their research and artistic endeavors.

The IAS currently supports a total of eighteen Research and Creative Collaboratives.

Awardees for the Fall 2024 IAS Research and Creative Collaborative Call are funded from January 2025 through June 2026 and are:
 

“Bioinspired" Collaborative: Growing Interdisciplinary Collaborations While Developing Best Practices for Cross-field Interactions

The emerging field of bio-inspired design or biomimicry is rooted in interdisciplinary engagement from fields including biology, design, engineering & business. Such interdisciplinary innovation can be challenging: how do we best structure interactions between biologists, engineers, designers and industry? We will convene structured conversations and workshops to generate knowledge to strengthen collaboration, build a network of faculty and student collaborators, and prepare proposals for bio-inspired product research and development. We will experiment with methods to promote interdisciplinary team formation and idea generation, and will build our knowledge of the best practices of interdisciplinary collaboration around bio-inspired innovations that may take decades from idea to industry. We will seed a collective that bridges basic research in academia to applications in industry.

• Emilie Snell-Rood, Associate Professor, Ecology, Evolution and Behavior, College of Biological Sciences, University of Minnesota Twin Cities
• Prasad Boradkar, Dean, College of Design, University of Minnesota Twin Cities
• Dimitri Smirnoff, Research Assistant, Curriculum and Instruction, College of Education and Human Development, University of Minnesota Twin Cities

This is a new IAS Collaborative.

Changing the Culture and Use of Solitary Confinement and Segregation in Minnesota

We are an interdisciplinary group working in partnership with community-based organizations to reduce and eventually eliminate the use of solitary confinement in Minnesota jails. With this renewal we are seeking to build upon the creation of a Minnesota Bill in order to help build a campaign led by those who are system impacted in order to abolish solitary confinement and reform the use of segregation in all facilities in Minnesota. The Bill was written and created through the use of interviews and discussions with those who have been system impacted and we are hoping to both educate the public, the legislature and find a way to build power with those who wish to change the system.

• Linus Chan, Teaching Attorney, Law School, University of Minnesota Twin Cities
• Kevin Reese, Co-Founder and Co-Executive Director, Until We Are All Free
• Zeke Caligiuri, Community Engagement Manager, Minnesota Justice Research Council
• Calla Brown, Assistant Professor, Pediatrics & Adolescent Health, Medical School, University of Minnesota Twin Cities
• Mahmoud Ahmed, Community and Outreach Program Coordinator, James H. Binger Center for New Americans, Law School, University of Minnesota Twin Cities

Support for this IAS Collaborative has been renewed.

Colonial Collections Across the University

The Colonial Collections Across the University Collaborative will continue engaging people across the university and the Twin Cities who work with archival, museum, teaching, and research collections that are the legacies of colonial collecting practices. Building upon our initial goal of highlighting the interconnectedness of our collections, we aim to further research, reassociate, and share connections between collections related to the university’s early General Museum. This case study is a concrete example of our history of collecting practice and also how to enact a duty of care and responsibility for items, even when they may no longer be in our possession. For the renewal, we plan to expand our network, build upon and share collections research, design new graduate-level curriculum related to our collections practice, and write proposals for larger grant support of our efforts.

• Ellen Holt-Werle, Institutional Archivist, University Archives, Archives and Special Collections, University Libraries, University of Minnesota Twin Cities
• Kat Hayes, Professor, Anthropology, College of Liberal Arts, University of Minnesota Twin Cities

Support for this IAS Collaborative has been renewed.

Creative Defiance: Art, Digital Activism, and Feminist Solidarity in Afghanistan and Iran

This project examines how Afghan and Iranian women use artistic expression as feminist resistance against oppressive regimes, with new forms since 2021. Through virtual ethnography and community-engaged methods, it delves into protest art—including music, dance, and visual works shared on social media—transforming online spaces into sites of resistance and collective identity. The initiative develops a digital archive of works from members of the Afghan Cultural Society, Iranian and Afghan evacuee artists now residing in Minnesota—preserving these artistic expressions as a platform for sustained activism. Project’s activities include collaborative art-making, protest choreography workshops, and “Art as Resistance” nights with artists. Findings will be presented in a scholarly paper and public forms such as exhibitions and roundtables, contributing to feminist and Middle Eastern studies.

• Tahmina Sobat, Teaching Assistant, Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies; College of Liberal Arts, University of Minnesota Twin Cities
• Fatemeh Nasr Esfahani, Teaching Assistant, Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies; College of Liberal Arts, University of Minnesota Twin Cities
• Sonali Pahwa, Associate Professor, Theatre Arts & Dance, College of Liberal Arts, University of Minnesota Twin Cities

This is a new IAS Collaborative.

Resisting  Borders, Cultivating Solidarities Through Performance

This collaboration explores the possibilities of going beyond borders of nationstates, disciplines, Universities, and performance forms, to work together to cultivate resistance and solidarities against oppressive powers. The project seeks to reimagine spaces for transdisciplinary and transnational collaborations in performance creation and research, by centering the embodied knowledge of artists and activists from the Global South, particularly India, Iran and its diaspora in Minneapolis. By uniting diverse performers and scholars, we will create spaces to explore non-Western performance forms and their politics, research in/as performance from the Global South, culminating in multi-site hybrid digital performances and a mini-conference. This will act as the first step towards creating a critical collective of artists/scholars from the Global South committed to change and justice.

• Vaishnavi Kollimarla, Teaching Assistant, Theatre Arts & Dance, College of Liberal Arts, University of Minnesota Twin Cities
• Mohammadreza Izadi Hemmatabadi, Teaching Assistant, Theatre Arts and Dance, College of Liberal Arts, University of Minnesota Twin Cities
• Deepak Kumar, Social Worker and Theater Practitioner, Bluebells International School, New Delhi, India
• Hasti Jafari Joznai, Independent Playwright, San Francisco; Koolis Theater Group, Iran
• Cindy Garcia, Theatre Arts & Dance / Art History, College of Liberal Arts, University of Minnesota Twin Cities

This is a new IAS Collaborative.

Writing Puppetry: A Workshop Intensive for K-12 Teachers of Color in Minnesota

An embodied approach to supporting the retention of teachers of color in the profession, Writing Puppetry: A Workshop Intensive for K-12 Teachers of Color in Minnesota is a five-day workshop that provides participants an opportunity to use the artistic practice of puppetry to reflect on their relationship to the schools they work in, as well as the communities, histories, and identities they may bring to their work. This program engages in arts-based professional development combined with writing pedagogies, furthering goals of interdisciplinary collaboration by inviting teachers from a number of disciplines, grade levels, and school districts in the Twin Cities. Writing Puppetry is a collaboration between the Minnesota Writing Project and Monkeybear’s Harmolodic Workshop.

• Jasmine Kar Tang, Co-Director, Center for Writing and Minnesota Writing Project, College of Liberal Arts, University of Minnesota Twin Cities
• Lee Fisher, Director, Minnesota Writing Project, Center for Writing, College of Liberal Arts, University of Minnesota Twin Cities
• Chamindika Wanduragala, Founder and Executive + Artistic Director, Monkeybear’s Harmolodic Workshop

Support for this IAS Collaborative has been renewed.