Posted: April 7, 2025

Faculty and staff from Lehigh's Institute Functional Materials and Devices were among the presenters at the first of its kind "Interdisciplinary Research in the Arts Symposium" held at Lehigh University on March 21, 2025. The symposium was jointly sponsored by the Lehigh University Art Galleries (LUAG) and the Vice Provost for Research (VPR) office. The event featured a total of 20 presentation, performances and discussions and was open to all members of the Lehigh and regional communities.

As part of the event, I-FMD faculty member James (Jim) Gilchrist, the Ruth H. and Sam Madrid Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering presented "Great Painters are Protorheologists: Designing the Flow of Paint." During this talk, Gilchrist connected his research field of rheology, the study of the deformation and flow of matter, with the techniques used in art, using painters such as Vincent van Gogh as an example.

I-FMD faculty member and Associate Professor of Chemistry Elizabeth (Liz) Young, along with her colleague and Associate Professor of English Lorenzo Servitje presented "Blasting Boundaries: How Art Integrates the Chemistry and Culture of Explosives." This presentation focused on student presentations developed during a first year seminar co-taught by Dr. Young and Dr. Servitje. The presentations weaved together chemical concepts and behavior of explosive materials into innovative language arts such as poetry and narrative fiction.

The final session of the day, titled "Botanical Art and the University Herbarium" was presented by Professors Anna Chupa and Deirdre Murphy from the department of Art Architecture and Design along with Professor Robert Booth from the Department of Earth and Environmental Science. This talk focused on how plants, specifically those found in the university herbarium at Lehigh can be used to influence art, as well as how artistic drawing lessons can enhance student learning in Environmental Science. As part of this presentation, Donald (Don) Carpenter, SEM Manager for I-FMD's Materials Characterization Facility presented on unique techniques to collect high resolution SEM images of plant samples which were then utilized in textile art created by Prof. Chupa. 

Recordings of the presentations can be found on LUAG's website.