Georgia Tech Arts Announces Fall 2026 Student Fellowship and Microgrant Awards 

ATLANTA — Georgia Tech Arts is proud to announce the inaugural class of GT Arts Fellows and the recipients of the Fall 2026 Microgrants.  

GT Arts microgrants support student or postdoc-led, cross-disciplinary artistic projects that enliven Georgia Tech's campus with the spirit of creativity. These grants offer support for both individual and collaborative projects spanning a variety of creative disciplines. 

This semester, nine of the twelve grantees elected to become inaugural Georgia Tech Arts Fellows, a title distinguishing their commitment to growing both their individual artistry and the campus creative community over the course of the full academic year.  

Georgia Tech Arts 2026-27 Fellows: 

Julia Byrne, a graduate student in Industrial Design (College of Design), received support to stage a reading of her original play, To Serve The Hive, preceded by a Beehive Tour with Beekeepers at GT and followed by a post-show conversation with the creative team. Produced in collaboration with Play Haven, a new work incubator for Atlanta artists, the reading will feature a cast and creative team of both students and professionals. The performance will take place on the Kendeda Rooftop on October 29 at 7 PM; free tickets can be reserved here. 

Nolana Charles, an undergraduate in Biomedical Engineering (College of Engineering), is producing Go Smell The Flowers in collaboration with Sabre Esler at The Pollinator Art Space. Go Smell the Flowers is an interactive sculptural installation illustrating the rich floral biodiversity at Tech, consisting of 100–500 handmade flowers made from tissue paper, acrylic paints and markers, floral wiring, netting, and beading. Charles has been hosting pop-up workshops throughout the semester for students to contribute to the mural, which will hang in GT’s Library in March. Her next pop-up, a collaboration with Center for Civic Engagement titled Bloom with GT, will take place on October 12th from 3-5PM in the Center for Student Engagement office (Suite 3110, . 

Sosuke Ichihashi, a PhD candidate in Digital Media (Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts), received support for Touching by Seeing: Creating Visual Media with Texture Using Gaze-Based Texture Sounds, an interactive media art installation that bridges the sensory gap caused by the dominance of 2D media in daily life. By synthesizing visual art with real-time textural auditory feedback, the project allows people to "feel" digital textures simply by looking at them. Ichihashi is collaborating with Supratim Pait, who is a Microgrant alum and also a PhD candidate in Digital Media. 

Debbie Jung, a graduate student in City and Regional Planning (College of Design), will produce Tech Play Commons, a vibrant, interactive installation using imagery, keepsakes, and toys representative of youth, encouraging a realignment with one's childlike imagination. The installation asks visitors to reflect on how childhood hopes and dreams pave the path for, or diverge from, one’s adult self.  

Aleena Khetani, an undergraduate student studying Neuroscience (College of Sciences), received funding for Neural Connections, a student-designed "paint-by-numbers" mural to be completed by the Neuroscience community and displayed in Clough Undergraduate Commons. The project unites members of the Student Neuroscience Association in contributing to a banner representing their collective identity, with a permanent mounting near the Neuroscience suite. Khetani is collaborating with Dr. Christina Ragan, Director of Neuroscience Outreach, and GT Library. 

Josephine Klefeker, a Ph.D. candidate in the Human-Centered Computing (College of Computing), received funding for The Afterlives of Things: Finding Enchantment in the Discarded, a series of interactive sculptures composed of discarded clothing and everyday objects. Using RFID tags and sensors, the project invites participants to physically interact and reveal the history of the materials, asking what it would mean to discard, reimagine, re-enchant, and revalue these items.  

TeAiris Majors, a PhD candidate in Music Technology (College of Design), received funding for Rhythms Reconnected, an interactive music technology system that highlights and celebrates the rich cultural history of West African drumming. The platform allows users to explore rhythms by geographic origin with a notation and playback engine that supports the timing and feel of a traditional performance. The grant supports the purchase of four acoustic djembes for drum circles around the Georgia Tech community. 

Isaiah Phillips, an undergraduate studying studentComputational Media (College of Computing) and Industrial Design (College of Design), will lead Cultures of Tech, a community mural inviting the GT community to contribute a doodle, symbol, or motif drawn from their heritage, building a visual map of co-existing cultures on campus. Phillips will serve as lead coordinator for 13 key illustrators and plans to offer pop-up opportunities for students to contribute across different campus-wide events. 

Alejandro Suarez (PhD candidate in Music Technology - College of Design), on behalf of M.E.A.T, received funding for Viriditas, an installation using an overhead camera and real-time computer vision algorithms to transform space into a shared musical experience. Each participant is assigned a unique sound, with their spatial coordinates controlling texture, density, playback rate, and spatialization. This installation will be on display in AECT’s new gallery space (room 136) on October 16th and 17th from 12-5 PM, with open workshops for students interested in the assembly process on September 30th, October 7th, and October 14th, all from 12-5 PM.  

Georgia Tech Arts Fall 2026 Micrograntees: 

Anthony Cammarota, a Ph.D. candidate in Music Technology (College of Design), will create Common Chords: Reconfiguring the Everyday through Collaborative Sonic Interaction, an interactive music installation that transforms mundane, everyday objects — coffee mugs, books, tennis balls, and more — into intuitive musical instruments. Embedded with custom wireless sensors, the objects are stripped of their utilitarian identity and reconfigured as tools for child-like play. Cammarota is collaborating with School of Music faculty members Alexandria Smith and Jeff Albert.  

Brian Park (undergraduate, Computer Science – College of Computing), on behalf of GT Photography and in collaboration with Sean McCormick at The Pollinator Art Space through Goat Farm, will lead Holding Light: Tintype Portraits at Georgia Tech, a mobile tintype portrait studio constructed for workshops and pop-up activations on campus, teaching students about a historic photography practice widely used in 1885, the year of GT's founding. 

Pallavi Sundaram (undergraduate, Computer Science – College of Computing) on behalf of GT Creatives, will host 404Fest, a large-scale event uniting student performance groups and Atlanta-based artists on a shared stage, celebrating Atlanta as a rich, diverse cultural and creative hub and marking Georgia Tech as a space representative of that richness. 

Spring applications are open now until November 20th, with a priority deadline for feedback on October 16th. For more information about these programs, please contact Kailey Albus, Student Support Specialist for Georgia Tech Arts at kailey.albus@gatech.edu.