Office ofResearch + Creative Activity
Catalyzing Research + Creative Practice
Our mission is simple: to act as a catalyst for faculty and students in attaining their research and creative practice ambitions, and to position these activities as a central component of the research enterprise at Penn State.
We aim to foster within the college a vibrant culture of inquiry that promotes excellence within our disciplines, while at the same time leveraging the potential of a comprehensive research university.
If you are a member of our community, we invite you to use the resources here to further your research agenda. Please be in touch with the Research Office to discuss your research and creative practice needs.
Research Proposal Development Process
Visit the Research Proposal Development page to learn more about the process for identifying funding opportunities and engaging with the college to support your efforts.
Graduate research and creative achievements
Research Centers + Initiatives
The College of Arts and Architecture provides research space, funding and project development opportunities through a variety of Centers and Institutes.
A&A Sustainability
A&A Sustainability seeks to advance sustainability, integrating it into the college’s strategic plan and fostering it in teaching and learning, research, community engagement, and operations.
Arts and Design Research Incubator
ADRI coordinates and hosts a range of programming designed to foster, support, and broadly disseminate innovative arts, design, and health-focused research and practice.
Borland Project Space
Borland Project Space projects, workshops, and exhibitions move beyond traditional notions of exhibition, performance, and scholarly programming to reveal the processes and procedures of “arts research.”
C-PAD
C-PAD is a nexus for scholars, artists, designers, practitioners, and community members who share a common interest in learning and teaching through the arts.
Ecology + Design
E+D engages research-activated design intervention that seeks to significantly improve the ecological health of the designed world, particularly in the areas of biodiversity, energy, risk and hazard, and water systems.
Hamer Center for Community Design
The Hamer Center serves as a laboratory for community partnerships that integrate socio-economic and environmental conscious resolution to design and planning problems.
Stuckeman Center for Design Computing
The SCDC is a multidisciplinary community of researchers exploring computation as a subject of creative and scholarly inquiry in design across scales and modes of engagement
Studio for Sustainability + Social Action
Imagine the visual arts at Penn State with sustainability and social action at their core. S3A is dedicated to sustainability and a philosophical and moral call to social action through artistic practice.
Virtual/Material Studies
The Center for Virtual/Material Studies supports innovative research – at the intersection of materiality studies and computation – and teaching collaborations to enhance understanding of cultural heritage.
News from A&A
CPAD announces new leadership, focus areas for coming months
Susan Russell, associate professor of theatre, has been appointed director of the Center for Pedagogy in Arts and Design (CPAD). She will work with new associate directors Crystal Ramsay, assistant
College of Arts and Architecture and local elementary school collaborate on mural
