Join us to celebrate the class of 2025. Find info, watch the web stream and read about the student and faculty award winners of 2025.

Research

We are a hub for technology-driven interdisciplinary creative research and practice, collaborating across disciplines to make transformative change in the world.

Faculty publications and honors

The following strategic research themes represent the wide spectrum of experience and expertise housed within CAMD. Across these research areas, our faculty members draw upon contextualized, participatory, and creative approaches to critically examine challenges, prototype solutions, and catalyze lasting change through collaborative action.

Themes

Creative Catalyst Seed Grants

The goal of this program is to support new projects that bridge disciplines and push the boundaries of traditional research paradigms. Proposals should be led by two or more CAMD faculty members based in different departments. Additional collaborators from CAMD and other colleges at Northeastern are encouraged, as are collaborators from other institutions, including community-based organizations. We invite innovative proposals aligned with CAMD strategic research priorities, including, but not limited to, AI and performance, health and wellbeing, embodied technology, and sustainability and resilience.

Special Focus for FY27: AI & Performance

This year we invite proposals that explore the intersection of artificial intelligence and performance, broadly defined. This includes theatre, music, dance, live art, and other embodied and time-based practices, as well as performance in team dynamics and collaboration, live teaching and learning, and engagement in healthcare and clinical settings. We are interested in work that examines how AI systems can extend, disrupt, or collaborate in performance across these settings, whether through generative tools for composition and choreography, machine learning applied to gesture and motion, AI-driven responsive environments that use architectural and spatial sensor data to shape a space in real time, human-AI co-performance, AI-mediated support in classrooms or care settings, or critical and historical inquiry into what AI means for performers, practitioners, and audiences.

FY27 Creative Catalyst Deadlines

October 21, 2026 — Creative Catalyst FY27 Phase 1 proposals due
December 15, 2026 – Apply to serve as a Creative Catalyst reviewer
February 1, 2027 — Creative Catalyst FY27 Phase 2 proposals due

CAMD Faculty are invited to visit the CAMD Hub SharePoint site for complete information about active internal funding programs and key deadlines.

CyberArts Festival

Human + Machine: Creativity, Security, Intelligence, and the Living World
The theme for the inaugural CyberArts Festival asks applicants to consider the question, how do humans and intelligent systems collaborate, compete, and coexist, and what does creativity reveal about that relationship?  

The CyberArts Festival is a cross-disciplinary, university-wide showcase of original works at the intersection of art, design, and cybersecurity. Presented jointly by the College of Arts, Media and Design (CAMD) and Northeastern University’s Arlington campus, the Festival will feature new works created through collaborative partnerships between faculty across Northeastern’s colleges and campuses.

How we're reimagining the future

Harnessing innovation through interdisciplinary collaboration, CAMD bridges research and creative practice to reimagine and reshape the future. Our college includes practitioners in a variety of artistic disciplines, scientific researchers, designers, technology innovators, and scholars who integrate theory and praxis for deep impact. CAMD faculty also work across disciplines spanning computer science, health sciences, engineering, and social sciences, and are engaged in industry, policy, and local and global communities. By focusing on how we perceive, what we create, and how we communicate, CAMD is human centered at its core. In an age defined by rapid technological change and the rise of AI, the creative approaches and critical thinking fostered here have never been more essential.

Explore our labs and initiatives       

Centers

Hubs for Research and Collaboration

Center for the Arts

The Center for the Arts is a generative hub for interdisciplinary research, exhibitions, and programming in and through the arts. It promotes the academic mission, research, cultural leadership and artistic and intellectual enrichment of the College and University.

More About CfA       

Center for Design

The Center for Design is a platform for interdisciplinary design research; it’s a space for collaborative research activities and a hub for connecting the actors of the design ecosystem. It aims to share knowledge and practices, shape common tools and methods and strengthen a unified disciplinary ground.

More About CfD       
A glass-walled classroom or study space at Northeastern University. The wall features text reading 'Northeastern University College of Arts, Media and Design Center for Transformative Media'. Inside the room, students can be seen working at tables under fluorescent lighting. The space has a modern, institutional design with dark flooring and white walls.

Center for Transformative Media

The Center for Transformative Media is a hub for research that explores the potential of emerging technologies to transform society, our potential to develop new media technologies, and how people and communities use existing and emerging media in innovative and creative ways.

More About CTM       
RESEARCH

Featured Projects

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Rebuilding schools in rural Ethiopian conflict zones

Architecture

In collaboration with the Ethiopian Association of Architects (AEA), architecture professor Alpha Arsano proposed designs for pre-K through high schools in areas of Ethiopia affected by conflict.

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Rebecca Kleinberger

Parrots develop friendships through Zoom calls

Music

CAMD Music professor Rébecca Kleinberger introduced video calls to parrots. The results show that captive birds can form relationships with other birds through a screen.

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Rebecca Kleinberger

Interactive Visualizations – Studio with Noah Paessel

Art + Design

In this studio, students of Prof. Noah Paessel transformed social data into visual experiences about people, places, and ideas.

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Visualizing conflict of interest

Art + Design

This research project scores each U.S. state based on relevant disclosure policies and practices.

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Research Facilities

CAMD is home to a central lab, studio, making, and creative practice ecosystem that supports experiential learning, cutting-edge research, and diverse creative practices among students and faculty.

More About Media Studios

Dean’s Distinguished Lecture Series

The Dean’s Distinguished Lecture Series, an interdisciplinary conversation series inviting leaders in art, media, design, and academia to weigh in on the biggest ideas and most pressing issues in their fields. Join the College of Arts, Media and Design for thought-provoking discussions with some of the most prominent creative minds in the country.

More about the series       

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