2026 Art of Research Winners

Kasturika Shankar
Postdoctoral Scholar
Biological Sciences, College of Arts and Sciences

Patterns of Bias investigates whether artificial intelligence can inherit centuries of human bias embedded in healthcare. The work highlights how medical AI systems learn from archival data shaped by systemic bias. Although AI is often imagined as neutral and objective, it is trained on human-made datasets that reproduce long-standing disparities in whose pain is believed, whose illnesses are studied, and whose records are preserved. Historical patterns in which women and other underrepresented groups have faced dismissed symptoms, delayed diagnoses, and exclusion from clinical research have produced an evidentiary landscape that privileges certain bodies while rendering others invisible. When these records are treated as ground truth, contemporary technologies risk recirculating inherited inequities rather than challenging them. This oil painting style, early Renaissance inspired artwork, visualizes this dynamic through an abstract humanoid AI figure composed of glowing, semi-transparent neural threads and nodes. Streams of data enter from faceless human silhouettes in historically inflected garments, representing generations of patients whose experiences feed present-day models. Female-associated streams appear muted, fragmented and twisted, signaling overlooked conditions and systemic diagnostic gaps, while male-associated streams remain bright, smooth and prominent, reflecting their historical overrepresentation in medical research and treatment. As the AI absorbs these unequal inputs, its neural structure glows unevenly, and the resulting output streams mirror the imbalance they encode. Set against warm brick walls, arches, and vaulted ceilings, the neutral environment evokes historical depth without assigning blame. Overall, this work summarizes the interaction between centuries of human experience and AI, inviting viewers to confront how bias persists and echoes in future technologies. 

Antara Satchidanand
Postdoctoral Scholar
Communicative Disorders and Sciences, College of Arts and Sciences

Manohar Golleru
Graduate Student
Industrial and Systems Engineering, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences

At the Communication and Assistive Devices Laboratory, our research is dedicated to helping people with communication disabilities participate more fully in conversation. What distinguishes our work from other approaches to technology design is our commitment to keeping human connection at the center—both as the reason these devices matter and as the guiding principle in how we design and study them.

In this photograph, Professor Jeff Higginbotham and his longtime collaborator Todd Hutchinson are seated among the many components of our latest project: an AI-enhanced speech-generating device. Visible in the image are Todd's wheelchair, his speech-generating device, our experimental interface, laptop computers, mobile devices used to record both Todd's device screens and the interaction itself, and other supporting technologies. But the focal point of the photograph is not the equipment. It is the human connection between Todd and Jeff, who have worked on research together for more than 30 years, since Todd was 14 years old.

This photograph serves as a reminder of why research supporting assistive technologies matters. The goal is not simply to help people communicate basic wants and needs, but to support them in expressing who they are within their closest, most enduring relationships.

Deirdre Harder
Graduate Student
Art, College of Arts and Sciences

42.84119° N, 78.79326° W is an assemblage of objects removed from Cazenovia Creek after a fish population survey. Meticulously gathering, cleaning, and cataloguing the trash became a chance to reflect on the creatures that call this watershed home. Many of the objects can be traced to their origins: golf balls from the adjacent Olmsted Parks course, soda cans thrown from cars roaring overhead on I-90, and industrial metal from the derelict railroad bridge. The dense layering of these materials creates pockets of shelter and shadow that parallel nature's tendency to reclaim human debris as makeshift habitat. The line in my field notes read: “High volume of metal trash in water and on shore.” By giving a physical form to that data, this work explores how science and art together can inspire deeper awareness and care for the ecosystems that tenaciously survive around us. 42.84119° N, 78.79326° W is an invitation to look up the location, to visit, and to notice what we leave behind in places we never think about.

Tara Schroth
Graduate Student
Industrial and Systems Engineering, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences

Behind every delivery route, bus schedule, and warehouse location lies a hidden web of decisions. These decisions are often made using mathematical models called integer programs: powerful tools that help determine the most efficient way to assign tasks, move vehicles, or distribute resources. On paper, these problems appear as thousands of lines of equations, making it very difficult to identify structural similarities among problems. 

In this work, we transform those equations into networks. Each node represents a decision, and each connection represents a relationship. When drawn this way, problems that once looked abstract and impenetrable reveal surprising structure: symmetry, clustering, and repeating patterns. 

The images in this collection showcase four different classes of decision-making problems: scheduling, vehicle routing, vertex coloring, and assignment. Though they arise in very different real-world settings, their underlying structure often looks strikingly similar. By revealing the “shape” of these problems, we can borrow solution techniques from other structurally-similar problem types, making complex decisions faster and more efficiently. What once looked like lines of equations becomes something organic—almost floral—exposing the hidden geometry of optimization.

Brandon Keim
Graduate Student
Earth Sciences, College of Arts and Sciences

A thunderous roar. The earth moves beneath your feet. 

Every volcanologist has their own bucket list of volcanoes. For many, Mount Stromboli (Italy) is at the top. Stromboli is an archetypal volcano – a Strombolian eruption style is characterized by small explosions and incandescent material. It has been continuously active for at least 2,000 years and currently averages an eruption every half hour. My research focuses on the dynamics and transport of pyroclastic flows, which are a secondary hazard at Stromboli. On a hot summer night in June, after a strenuous hike to the viewpoint, I set up my camera and waited for sunset. After two hours of taking sunset photos and long exposures with my digital camera, I switched to my film camera (which my advisor bought in 1985). A moment later, the largest explosion of the night–with no time to think, I squeezed the shutter release, guessing the exposure time and praying that my instincts would get me the shot I was after. After waiting weeks to get the film developed, it had worked. Capturing a last-second volcanic eruption on film felt to me like the culmination of technical and artistic efforts that I had been working on for years. 

Nathan Ruffalo
Graduate Student
Architecture, School of Architecture and Planning

This long-exposure photograph captures a simulated 3D printing toolpath executed by an industrial robotic arm. In this study, a light source is used to visualize additive manufacturing, a process of building architectural forms or components layer by layer from a digital model. By tracing the machine’s movement, the image allows for the verification of complex architectural geometries and construction sequences before consuming real materials. This method facilitates iterative testing of automated systems, providing visual feedback to further refine these emerging fabrication techniques. This visual analysis is part of broader research that includes building parametric workflows, 2D robotic drawing tests, and physical 3D printing, aiming to develop more efficient and sustainable construction methods.

Sean Grasing
Graduate Student
Earth Sciences, College of Arts and Sciences

Western New York's Cattaraugus Creek is the subject of this image, drawing attention to its prominent, abandoned terraces and its winding paths visible across the land. These terraces and pathways, carved by the creek, were shaped by changing water levels in Lake Erie over the last 15,000 years. And so the ancient paths of the creek laid before you could have been visited by past megafauna, wildlife, and Paleo-Indians.

Charity John
Graduate Student
Theatre and Dance, College of Arts and Sciences

The image is drawn from Vumani, a choreographic research project that explores the relationship between the physical body and the unseen spiritual world. The word Vumani, is South African meaning "acceptance" or "to agree in harmony", and is an African-inspired piece that explores the emotional journey of life and the process of healing wounded psyches through movement. It emphasizes the transformative power of embracing life and feelings as they are, recognizing that acceptance can often pave the way forward. In this moment, suspended between darkness and light, the dancer moves with an expanding red, draping form, symbolizing the tension between resistance and surrender. Through Afro-modern movement vocabularies, the body becomes both method and archive, investigating how cultural memory, rhythm and embodied knowledge guide us toward acceptance, even in the presence of the unknown.