Congratulations to the Wilkinson College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences projects that were awarded a total of $84,673 from three internal grant programs – the Office of Research’s Faculty Grant for Research, Scholarship and Creative Activities, Wilkinson College’s Scholarly/Creative Activity Faculty Grant, and Fowler School of Engineering’s McGovern Foundation Trusted Artificial Intelligence. Below is a summary of each of the funded projects.

Faculty Grant for Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activities

The Office of Research Faculty Grant for Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activities (FGRSC) internal grant program provides competitive, merit-based support for research, scholarly, and creative activities in all disciplines and fields. The FGRSC supports projects that will lead to the development of new and innovative scholarship and creative activity or those that lead to the production of publications, attract external funding, increase competitiveness for external awards, and enhance the national visibility and reputation of Chapman faculty.

Lia Halloran (Art)
Invisible Elements: Reimagining the Periodic Table through Art and Hidden Histories ($11,000)

This project aims to create a large-scale art installation that challenges the traditional narratives of scientific discovery by reimagining the periodic table as a framework for uncovering overlooked contributions of women, queer communities, and other marginalized groups in Southern California’s scientific history. By creating 118 individual artworks corresponding to the elements, Invisible Elements bridges scientific research with contemporary art, visualizing both the physical properties of matter and the hidden human stories intertwined with them. Creating this series will culminate in the largest and most ambitious work Halloran has made to date and a solo exhibition at the Huntington Museum. The recognizable layout that makes up the periodic table, a foundational structure in science, categorizes the elements that make up the material world. Yet, many of the histories of women and underrepresented groups who contributed to our understanding of these elements remain largely obscure. This project seeks to illuminate these histories using a rigorous research-based approach that incorporates archives.

Renee Hudson (English)
Latinx Girlhood ($14,988)

Hudson’s interdisciplinary second book project, Latinx Girlhood, examines a range of materials from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century to explore how class differences affected the formation of latinidad. Among these materials are Spanish-language readers, primers, and children’s books, Spanish to English textbooks, paper dolls, photographs, letters, and novels. In this project, Hudson contends that Latina – not Latinx – girlhood is often a hegemonic enterprise in which the gender and sexuality of Latina girls are constantly policed and surveilled. By looking at readers, primers, and textbooks, Hudson will examine the cultural cues that are conveyed to Spanish-speaking audiences both about themselves and also about the U.S. Centering the lives of girls, Hudson posits, offers us different ways of apprehending the issues surrounding citizenship, assimilation, and democracy as well as how to wrestle with their contradictions. Hudson emphasizes Latinx girlhood over Latina girlhood to account for the texts that examine queerness, but, more than that, she uses the x to underscore how Latinx girls are “structurally queer” to the U.S. as a nation and latinidad as a transnational formation.

Hilmi Ulas (Peace and Justice Studies)
Exploring Cypriot Narratives of Immigration ($9,235)

This project investigates how Cyprus’s unresolved conflict influences public and institutional responses to migration. Using the ontological security (OS) framework, the study will analyze grassroots narratives from Greek Cypriots, Turkish Cypriots, and asylum seekers to understand how historical trauma and identity shape attitudes toward refugees. The research combines in-person and online interviews, field observations, and photographic documentation of border art and infrastructure. A research assistant will support data collection and analysis. The project aims to produce a policy brief, a photo exhibition, and a peer-reviewed journal article. Fieldwork will take place in summer 2025, with dissemination planned through 2026. The study addresses a gap in border and migration scholarship by focusing on Cyprus’s unique context as a divided island and EU member state.

Vivian Yan-Gonzalez (Asian American Studies)
Impossible Citizens: The Making of Asian American Politics in California, 1882-1988 ($15,000)

Impossible Citizens explores how Asian Americans grappled with their status as racialized immigrant communities as they engaged with the American political system. It traces the emergence and impacts of the first cohort of Chinese and Japanese American voters in California as they navigated their limited options and set the nationwide tone of Asian American politics. These individuals held citizenship through birthright or derivation, becoming what Yan Gonzalez calls “impossible citizens”: citizens of Asian descent in a country that banned citizenship for Asians. This book aims to address scholarly gaps caused by the historical suppression of the Asian American electorate and by the political context in which the field of Asian American Studies emerged. Impossible Citizens advances the scholarship on modern US political history and expands the frameworks of Asian American Studies by examining the insights that Asian American politics can provide into the construction and mobilization of racial, ethnic, and political identities over the 20th century. By introducing Asian American perspectives into the emerging literature on Republicans and conservatives of color, Yan-Gonzalez contributes to the intellectual and archival foundations of the field of comparative minority political history.

Wilkinson College Scholarly/Creative Activity Faculty Grant

The Wilkinson College Scholarly/Creative Activity Faculty Grant supports the development of impactful and innovative scholarly or creative work by Wilkinson College tenure-track or tenured faculty. This program aims to advance faculty career trajectories, elevate the national visibility and reputation of Wilkinson faculty for their excellence in creative and scholarly endeavors, and provide faculty with opportunities to catalyze new and innovative areas or bring an existing project to completion.

Lia Halloran (Art)
Invisible Elements ($4,450)

Halloran’s project reimagines the periodic table as a framework for exploring overlooked contributions of marginalized communities within Southern California’s scientific history. Expanding on an early 2012 study of small ink drawings, Halloran will create 118 large-scale works in painting, drawing, and experimental photography, each linked to an element’s scientific and cultural significance. Research from institutions like Caltech, the Huntington Library, the Getty Research Institute, the ONE Archives, and Mount Wilson Observatory will inform these works and weave contemporary narratives, such as Octavia Butler’s Pasadena roots and JPL’s early rocket pioneers. Halloran has been offered a solo exhibition at Huntington Museum and Gardens in Pasadena, so not only is this a substantial research effort, but it also will be a significant exhibition opportunity at a high-profile museum, raising awareness of her work as an artist and fostering a broader dialogue on representation in art and science.

Hilmi Ulas (Peace and Justice Studies)
The Cypriot Borderlands – Border as Art, Border as War ($5,000)

The Cypriot Conflict is one of the most intractable territorial conflicts in the modern era, and Cyprus hosts the last divided capital in the world. Within this context, many Cypriots have turned towards art as resistance against the ongoing division of the island, and many “artivists” have focused on the border where graffiti and mural arts are used as tools of expression. However, there have not been any studies that catalog and analyze the use of visual artivism and the evolution thereof, leading to a scholarly deficiency. This study will catalog and analyze pieces of artivism at the Cypriot borderlands to observe messaging and juxtapose such pieces with public art commissioned by Cypriot officials, which venerate the losses of war and perpetuate both the division and the resultant traumas. Ulas will produce a paper connecting these two usages of art with prominent narratives of the Cypriot conflict and create a virtual exhibition of the public art pieces for others to consider.

Vivian Yan-Gonzalez (Asian American Studies)
Impossible Citizens: The Making of Asian American Politics in California, 1882-1988 ($5,000)

This book project traces the emergence and impacts of the first cohort of Chinese and Japanese American voters in California as they grappled with their status as racialized immigrant communities within the US political system. By examining how global, national, and local contexts intersect with specific ethnic experiences, the book shows that race alone is insufficient to explain the political views and choices of Asian American individuals and groups. The book draws on archives and oral histories to demonstrate how Asian Americans constructed and mobilized racial, ethnic, and political identities to develop a unique non-white conservatism and appeal to Republican allies over the 20th century. Its insights advance the scholarship on modern US political history and expand the frameworks of Asian American Studies.

Fowler School of Engineering, McGovern Foundation, Trusted Artificial Intelligence
This program provides a focused effort to develop a trusted AI curriculum at Chapman University that will be paired with undergraduate research opportunities to produce new generations of AI and ML engineers and scientists who are capable of building robust and transparent technical solutions that can be relied upon and understood by those who use them.

Mali Ghajargar (Art)
In Conversation with Landscapes. Designing Tangible Conversational Agents for Botanical Literacy ($10,000)

Ghajargar’s project explores the design of tangible conversational agents to enhance botanical literacy through human-AI interaction. Grounded in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and design research, the study aims to foster trust and care between users and AI-infused products by enabling speech and tactile engagement with plant-related content. The project follows a Research through Design methodology across four phases: mapping current developments, ideation and co-design, iterative prototyping, and dissemination. Activities include literature review, hiring a student assistant, IRB submission, co-design sessions, prototype development, user testing, and scholarly dissemination. Expected outcomes include design requirements, functional prototypes, and academic publications. Ultimately, the research seeks to contribute to sustainable interaction design and deepen public engagement with botanical knowledge through innovative AI interfaces.

LL Hodges (History)
Human vs. Machine ($10,000)

Hodges proposes a redesign of the “History and Film” course under the theme “Human vs. Machine,” supported by the Trusted Artificial Intelligence training program. The course, to be taught in fall 2025 and interterm 2026, will explore trust in AI through historical, ethical, and experiential lenses. Unit 1 uses the role-play-based textbook Engines of Mischief to examine societal skepticism of technology during the Industrial Revolution. Unit 2 introduces AI model kits and a field trip to the Petersen Automotive Museum to explore transparency and explainability. Unit 3 focuses on algorithmic ethics, including the history of ImageNet and AI hallucinations, culminating in a guest lecture by an AI ethics expert. The course integrates films that investigate these topics to deepen engagement.