Nine College of Fine Arts faculty members have been selected as part of the Integrative Arts Research Fellowship cohort, earning funding to support research projects.
The Fellows were selected based on their ongoing projects which build resilient individuals and communities through practice-based arts research methods. Each will receive a stipend and pilot project funding to prepare them to apply for external grants next year.
Audrey Molloy, professional development consultant and an MA student in art history, will assist Ellen McMahon, associate dean for research, in researching external funding opportunities for the cohort, thanks to support from the Arizona Institute of Resilience. In the past year Molloy has assisted MOCA Tucson in receiving grants from the Mellon Foundation and Teiger Foundation.
“I’m grateful to AIR for providing the funding to provide individualized assistance to arts faculty to increase the reach and impact of their work through external funding,” said McMahon.
Presentations will be made at a symposium in mid-April at Center of Creative Photography.
- Nicole Antebi, School of Art
- Sarah Lisette Chiesa, School of Dance
- Sara Fraker, School of Music
- Liz George, School of Dance
- Jennie Gubner, School of Music
- Gabriela Ocadiz, School of Music
- Elaine Romero, School of Theatre, Film & Television
- Cynthia Stokes, School of Music
- Trent Williams, School of Dance
“All members of the cohort are developing projects which create the kind of embodied, tacit and implicit knowledge, which plays a major role in how humans make sense of our experience and ultimately how we choose to take action,” said McMahon. “They were selected because their work demonstrates the power of arts research to integrate into a wide range of knowledge domains, connect disciplines, engage with community, build a sense of belonging, and create new meaning and understanding.”
Nicole Antebi
School of Art, Assistant Professor
“Wonder Studio at Biosphere 2”
Project Emphasis: Nicole Antebi’s research builds on her work co-founding the Wonder Studio at Biosphere 2, a production lab for animation and film. This project allows students to explore Biosphere 2 through microscopy, animation, photography, and video. The studio fosters immersive learning, deepening appreciation for the natural world, and fills a gap in creative science communication by blending humor, data, and cinematic storytelling. It also provides workforce development for careers in the arts, science, engineering, marketing, and technology. Lastly, it enhances the impact of University of Arizona research through community-engaged storytelling and outreach.
Sarah Lisette Chiesa
School of Dance, Assistant Professor
“Energetic Presence of the Moving Body Left in Space”
Project Emphasis: “Energetic Presence of the Moving Body Left in Space” is a series of workshops occurring at the University of Arizona and several arts and cultural spaces throughout Tucson in 2025. Intended to evoke observations about energetic presence in space and time, the workshops are facilitated using eastern and western embodiment practices and endeavor to provide a place for people to enliven their sensing body.
Sara Fraker
School of Music, Associate Professor
“Watershed Soundscape: Building Community Through Music, Art and Watershed Science”
Artist Website | Project Website
Project Emphasis: Sara Fraker’s arts and environment project, Watershed Soundscape, supported by the 2024-2025 AIR Annual Resilience Theme Award. The project convenes a dynamic new collective of university researchers, nonprofits, Indigenous voices, school communities, musicians, and visual artists. This artist-led initiative creates a multidisciplinary platform to explore stewardship of land and water in the Santa Cruz River Watershed, fusing environmental science with sensory experiences to promote educational outreach grounded in Tucson’s unique sense of place. We are producing a chamber music concert series, commissioning two new multimedia works, facilitating workshops, and creating K-12 curriculum. The project also involves leading a 23-ensemble consortium which includes the Tucson Symphony Orchestra and high school/community concert bands from across Southern Arizona.
Liz George
School of Dance, Associate Professor
“Beyond the Flight of Imagination 1”
Project Emphasis: Approaching dance as research, Liz George’s IAR project draws on continued momentum from her involvement in Imagination 1, an all-artists simulated mission to the moon held at the Biosphere 2 in the spring of 2024. This project connects students to the interdisciplinary collaboration of Imagination 1 through experiential opportunities with the Biosphere 2 Center for Human Space Exploration, The Poetry Center, and engages in co-creative costume design with experts in the field.
Jennie Gubner
School of Music, Assistant Professor
“Music & Health Story Lab” | “La Peña del Surco”
Artist Website
Project Emphasis: Jennie Gubner’s research involves two key projects. The first is related to the Music & Health Story Lab website and an associated undergrad and graduate course, which seeks to develop new curricular opportunities for teaching about health and wellbeing through music; and a community health resource to promote intercultural dialogue about how music promotes health and wellbeing in our communities. The second project, La Peña del Surco is a community-music project that monthly gathers over 100 intergenerational community members from 10+ Latin American countries to engage in participatory music practice. Conceived as a living laboratory, La Peña researches culturally diverse forms of participatory music making as a vehicle for intergenerational community building and health promotion.
Gabriela Ocadiz
School of Music, Assistant Professor
“Waila Music Workshop with Gertie Lopez”
Project Website
Project Emphasis: With a focus on decolonizing and Indigenizing pedagogy, particularly through community music practices that integrate multiple art forms, Gabriela Ocadiz’s work emphasizes reclaiming traditional ways of teaching and learning. With the intent to explore how cultural and pedagogical practices can foster sustainable, community-based cultural resilience, Ocadiz’s IAR project(s) include a Waila Music Workshop with Gertie Lopez at the School of Music (March 2025); and ongoing engagement with interdisciplinary art-based summer camp project in Todos Santos, BCS, Mexico.
Elaine Romero
School of Theatre, Film & Television, Associate Professor
“The Invisible Line”
Artist Website
Project Emphasis: This supported play-in-process, “The Invisible Line,” addresses the conflict of state and federal public policy on the border and its impact on the lives and deaths of migrants who attempt to come to the U.S. seeking such things as political asylum and a better life. The “border crisis” has hijacked this country’s attention and called into question its identity as a place that welcomes people of all nations and all creeds. Romero’s research includes the politics of the federal government and border states and how they impact the lives of U.S. citizens and migrants, many seeking asylum from their home countries.
Cynthia Stokes
School of Music, Associate Professor
“Hearing the Invisible”
Project Story
Project Emphasis: Cynthia Stokes’ project, “Hearing the Invisible,” is part of an ongoing, trans-disciplinary collaboration between Opera Theater at the School of Music and the College of Medicine – Tucson with Dr. Tally Largent-Milnes. This collaboration draws from Largent-Milnes’ research entitled, “The Art of the Brain: Transdisciplinary investigation on how the diseased brain sounds and the influence of Art,” which investigates sounds which emanate from healthy and diseased brains on a cellular level.
Trent Williams
School of Dance, Associate Professor
“Against the Grain: Black Experience in Barbershop”
Trent Williams is a performer, choreographer and educator who creates work that speaks directly to the social inequalities impacting our changing world. In his research and work, he investigates identity markers such as “male,” “African-American,” “marginal,” and “minority,” which serves as a creative catalyst for choreographic works that address the social and political injustices that have been rampant in American society from its inception. These explorations of these difficult issues facilitate increased awareness and understanding—my own and my audience’s—of the lives of oppressed people throughout the world. Using this approach, I explore human vulnerability, propose new possibilities, and illuminate hope.
Support for this project is provided by the Technology Research Initiative Fund/Water, Environmental, and Energy Solutions Initiative administered by the University of Arizona Office for Research, Innovation and Impact and the Arizona Institute for Resilience and the College of Fine Arts Integrative Arts Research Fellows program.