Ryen Padilla, an Eastern Michigan University Honors College junior, Biology major, and Presidential Scholar, has been awarded the 2026 Barry Goldwater Scholarship. She is one of 454 students from across the nation selected from approximately 1,500 nominees and is the fourth EMU student to win the scholarship in the last five years.

In 2026, the Goldwater Scholarship celebrates 40 years of supporting college sophomores and juniors in becoming the next generation of leading STEM researchers. The scholarship is valued at $7,500.

“I applied because I wanted to expand my skills in research writing,” said Padilla. “The scholarship is a great opportunity for pursuing graduate school.”

The application process is writing-intensive. Padilla said that the experience of applying was worth it to enhance her writing skills. 

Padilla’s research, conducted under the direction of Aaron Liepman, Professor of Biology, focuses on characterizing the temperature responses of soybean photorespiratory enzymes. Padilla has presented her work at several conferences, including the EMU Undergraduate Research Symposium and the American Society of Plant Biology. In summer 2025, she also completed a 10-week research project with Federica Brandizzi and Brandon Reagan in the Plant Research Laboratory at Michigan State University.

“EMU has created a community that has helped me grow and has given me everything that I was looking for in a university environment,” said Padilla. “I am grateful to Dr. Liepman because he pushed me to apply and supported me throughout the whole process.” 

Read the full EMU Today story.

As a freshman studying Music Performance for violin, Lucy Morency was elated when the Suzuki Music Academy of Michigan invited her to join 38 others to perform at the historic performance venue on March 9, 2026.

Morency first picked up the violin more than 14 years ago, training primarily with the Suzuki Music Academy in Madison Heights, MI. Her long-time instructor Mark Mutter approached her to join the academy for this performance.

Carnegie Hall first opened its doors in 1891 and has become renowned for its prestige. The venue debuted with performances by famous composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and has since hosted notable acts, including Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra, Louis Armstrong and more. 

For many musicians, playing at Carnegie Hall is a lifelong dream.

“Performing in the Debut Series was incredibly impactful for me as a player.” Morency said. “I have been taking lessons from Mr. Mutter for over a decade. Without him, my playing would not even be close to what it is today.”

Read the full EMU Today story.

Studio Art graduate student Melissa Snyder is using her art and her experience navigating disability to help reshape how young people’s health care stories are seen and understood. The Dawson, Minnesota native has been selected as an art consultant for the 2026 Conference on Adolescent Health: Caring for Youth in Times of Change, supporting the AMPLIFY exhibition, which showcases original works by 12 Michigan artists, ages 12 to 24, inspired by their own health care experiences.

As a consultant, Snyder will advise the Adolescent Health Initiative team on art curation, exhibition planning, and submission evaluation, and will serve as the primary point of contact with the youth artists. The exhibition theme of health and well-being is important to Snyder as it relates to her personal life.

“I have a hereditary degenerative eye disease called Retinitis Pigmentosa,” said Synder. “This disease causes severe night blindness and a slow degeneration of peripheral vision. I think some artists do not get enough opportunities to showcase work pertaining to their disabilities or experiences, so this project is truly special.”

Read the full EMU Today story.

Known for their commanding performances and competitive grit, Eastern Michigan University’s Forensics team once again proved why they are a powerhouse in collegiate forensics. The team delivered another standout season on the national stage, earning a sixth-place finish at the 2026 National Forensics Association National Tournament, held April 16–20 in Tennessee.

"This year, the team was really young,” said Bill Heinze, director of Forensics, School of Communication, Media and Theatre Arts. “Our first-year class made it to multiple quarter-final rounds, and many of our juniors saw their first-ever national final round. It is a testament to the legacy of Judy Sturgis Hill, the work of our alumni and coaching staff, and the support of Eastern Michigan that our students can uphold the tradition of excellence EMU forensics is known for, nationwide."

For more than four decades, EMU Forensics has established a legacy of success. As one of the founding members of the National Forensic Association, EMU has consistently ranked among the nation's top 10 teams, solidifying its legacy as a powerhouse in collegiate forensics.

Seventeen students competed in 79 events, with 37 placing in the top 50. The team also won the founders' award, which is given to the team with the most cumulative points across the entire competition. It's their eighth time receiving the award, last awarded in 2014. 

Highlights from the  tournament include:

• Katie George ('27, Louisville, OH): Fourth place, After Dinner Speaking

• Sasha Greer ('27, Canton, OH): Second place, Rhetorical Criticism

• Jason Folk ('27, Munroe Falls, OH): Fifth place, Persuasive Speaking

• Teagan Fuller ('26, Canton, OH), team vice president: National semifinalist in Dramatic Interpretation and Program Oral Interpretation; will begin a master’s in communication at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln this fall, where he will also coach.

• Olivia Wetzel ('26, Toledo, OH), team president: Fourth place, Persuasive Speaking; sixth place, Informative Speaking; 13th overall in Individual Sweepstakes; plans to take a gap year before preparing for the LSAT and pursuing international law.

Read the full EMU Today story.

Eastern Michigan University has awarded funding to undergraduate researchers through its Symposium Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) program, which supports student–faculty partnerships and encourages student participation in EMU’s annual Undergraduate Symposium.

Through the fellowship, selected students are paired with faculty mentors in their field of study to pursue a research or creative scholarly project of mutual interest. Student fellows receive a $1,000 stipend, and faculty mentors receive up to $1,000 to support project needs. Fellowships run for one year with the possibility of renewal. During the 2025–2026 academic year, EMU faculty mentors and sponsors supported 18 student fellows.

The program is fully funded through private donations to expendable funds associated with the Undergraduate Symposium.

A list of College of Arts & Sciences student fellows, faculty mentors, project areas, sponsors, and project descriptions appears below.

• Kwabena Adu Adjei

• Treasure Affia 

• Rakan Alnsour

• Grant Clark

• Ambrose Cook

• Rylee Curley

• Ben Durante

• Erika Holmberg

• Leslie Jelsch

• Autumn McGee

• Shayla Mostyn

• Ryan Padilla

• Kazimir Reszetar

• Jovan Shannon

• Khongorzul Tseesuren

Read the full EMU Today story for individual research projects.

Eastern Michigan University undergraduate students will have the opportunity to collaborate with faculty and expand their research skills through the Undergraduate Research Stimulus Program Awards for Fall 2025, Winter 2026 and Summer 2026.

Students and faculty will explore a wide range of topics, from artificial intelligence in cybersecurity and groundwater mapping in Michigan wetlands to prosthetic health innovations and the impact of sunscreen on DNA damage. The EMU Board of Regents approved the awards at its regular meeting.

The Undergraduate Research Stimulus Program facilitates partnerships between undergraduate students and faculty. Student awardees receive a $2,200 fellowship to support their research efforts, paid in bi-weekly installments and credited to their university account. Faculty mentors receive $600 to support lab or studio supplies, equipment, travel or other project-related expenses.

Across the three semesters, the Office of the Provost and Executive Vice President of Academic and Student Affairs awarded funding to 18 undergraduate students and 16 faculty members. The awards are divided among Fall 2025, Winter 2026 and Summer 2026 recipients.

The awardees and their faculty mentors from the College of arts & Sciences include:

Fall 2025 

• Keeran Senthil Kumar

Winter 2026

• Mina Abdel-Khalek

• Ishaq Ahmed 

• Brett Bogedain

• Hailey Bradley

• Vanessa Kraemer

• Eva Orlich Rojas

Summer 2026

• Teagan Combest

• Yasrib Yasir Farook

• Logan Lopus

• Nathaniel Monastere

• Audrey Norman

• Sara Reder 

• Bernardo Rojas 

Read the full EMU Today story.

Eastern Michigan University Professor of History Ashley Johnson Bavery has been selected for a Fulbright Program Scholar Award to Hungary for the 2026–2027 academic year, earning the László Országh Chair in American Studies. As part of the award, Bavery will represent American Studies at the University of Debrecen and across Hungary, delivering lectures and collaborating with scholars nationwide. 

“As the László Országh Chair, I will represent American Studies at the University of Debrecen and across Hungary,” said Bavery. “Instead of focusing on a single institution, I will share my research and offer lectures at American studies programs throughout Hungary.”

The László Országh Chair is considered more prestigious than a traditional Fulbright Scholar Award, recognizing scholars who demonstrate exceptional achievement and the ability to contribute broadly across academic institutions. Named after a leading linguist and pioneer of American Studies in Hungary, the chair carries both academic distinction and cultural significance.

Read the full EMU Today story.

Jeromy Hopgood, Professor of Entertainment Design & Technology and Director of the School of Communication, Media, and Theatre Arts, recently collaborated on a Metropolitan Opera production of Moby Dick.

Moby Dick isn’t a new opera, but its Metropolitan Opera debut required a fresh technical eye. Originally created in 2008, the production’s video elements needed to meet 2025-level expectations without losing their original artistic intent.

“You’re at arguably the most famous opera house in the world,” Hopgood explains, “and you can’t run the risk of digital content from 20 years ago looking ‘clunky’ on today’s higher resolution equipment.”

Working behind the scenes, Hopgood helped modernize and restore projection content, navigating everything from upscaling content to tracking changes, taking notes, and making updates to the production paperwork that is updated and catalogued for each production of the opera. His role focused less on personal artistic credit and more on supporting the creative vision at scale.

“At this level, your job is to make sure the designer doesn’t have to think about the technical details,” he says. “So they can stay creative, responsive, and in the room.”

Read the full Eastern Magazine story.

Eastern Michigan University has awarded 40 Summer Research and Creative Activity Awards to faculty members for 2026, supporting 39 special projects. Thirty-eight awards went to individual applicants, and two supported group projects. The program provides $12,000 stipends during the summer months, totaling $480,000, allowing faculty to focus on research and creative work instead of teaching.

This year’s projects span a wide range of disciplines, highlighting Eastern’s commitment to innovation and student success.

The 2026 Summer Research and Creative Activity Awards recipients from the College of Arts & Sciences are as follows:

• Kimberly Barrett

• Sydney Batchelder

• Peter Bednekoff

• Stephanie Casey

• Margeaux Claude

• Margaret Dobbins

• Maria Luz Garcia

• Heather Khan Welsh

• Rawon Lee

• Fredrick Lorenz 

• Justin Mann 

• Uttara Manohar

• Laura McMahon 

• Chirasree Mukherjee

• Maitreyee Mukherjee 

• Deborah Pae 

• Laura Rowley

• Gabriel Rudebusch 

• Kelsey Sala-Hamrick 

• James Saunoris

• Matthew Schaffer

• John Staunton

• Julie Stone Rupp

• David Suell

• William Welsh

• Yunting Yin 

Read the full EMU Today story.

Dave Coverly, is the creator of the cartoon panel Speed Bump, which runs internationally in hundreds of newspapers and websites, including The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, The Globe & Mail (Toronto), and the Detroit Free Press. His work was named “Best in Newspaper Panels” by the National Cartoonists Society in 1995, 2003, 2014, and 2022.

The self-taught artist cut his teeth on the comics in The New Yorker, and his earliest works ran in his middle and high school publications. Then came a strip called Freen—about a guy and his pet lizard—which he published in the Eastern Michigan University newspaper, The Eastern Echo, while he pursued a double major in philosophy and imaginative writing. Freen also ran in the Indiana Daily Student while Coverly attended graduate school at Indiana University Bloomington and won several awards in the late 1980s.

Now based in Ann Arbor, Mich., Coverly notes his time in Bloomington helped to set him on his unique path. “I [worked on my master’s degree] a little bit at a time, because that was kind of when the cartooning started kicking in,” he says. Besides his work for the IDS, Coverly created political cartoons for the Herald-Times newspaper.

Read the full article from Indiana University

Pam Stewart and Leslie Atzmon’s edited collection Visual Ecologies of Placemaking (Bloomsbury) will be out May 14, 2026. 

By looking at a range of natural, built, and digital environments, across historical and contemporary contexts, Visual Ecologies of Placemaking offers an in-depth study into place as a spatial, social and cultural construct. 

Leslie Atzmon will be giving a talk at School of the Art Institute Chicago on April 17, 2026. 

Using DNA translation and transcription as an illustration, she asks whether generative biochemical processes and their outcomes can be considered design. She presents several hybrid projects–such as music sonification or physical nano-objects that are generated by DNA codes—that call into question set boundaries between human-generated and naturally occurring “design.”

DNA sonification

Margeaux Claude will be presenting NCECA’s 3rd annual Poster Session - cultivating ceramic emerging ceramic research at Volumes: the 60th Annual National Council on the Education of Ceramic Art (NCECA) Conference. 

Claude and University Galleries (Danny Baskin) will also host the NCECA Collectors Tour: 30 collectors will visit EMU’s University Gallery and the Exhibition Detroit Dialogues: Automotive Design and Studio Ceramics curated by Claude and artist Anna Burke.

The Windgate Arts Complex will also host the Artstream Gallery for a post NCECA workshop free and open to the public on March 30-31. (look for email information from Margeaux)

Margeaux will also be exhibiting in three NCECA Exhibitions. The Group Exhibition Ceramics x Fiber with a collaborative work with Professor Joey Quiñones(Cranbrook Fiber) at the Boyer Campbell Building- curated by Professor Jessika Edgar (Wayne State) and Katie Schulman, 12x12 at Voyeur Bordello curated by Professor Steve Glazier (Henry Ford CC), and an exhibition curated by Terri Marra at the Scarab Club - titled Ikibana where vessels will be transformed by Ikibana master

Brendan Fay’s book has been printed (on Gardapat Bianka 150, if you’re scoring at home) and the exhibition it accompanies is in final production:

Princeton University Art Museum announces the forthcoming exhibition Photography as a Way of Life: Minor White, Aaron Siskind, and Harry Callahan. 

On view in Princeton from April 19 through September 7, 2026, the exhibition will travel through 2028, with presentations at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta; the Addison Gallery of American Art in Andover, Massachusetts; and the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri. 

Brendan Fay, the guest curator of the exhibition and author of the accompanying book (published by Princeton University Press in association with the Princeton University Art Museum) delivers the opening lecture at the PUAM members’ preview day on Saturday, April 18. 

In conjunction with Photography as a Way of Life and in collaboration with Princeton’s Department of Art & Archaeology, the museum is also hosting the two-day symposium “Learning Through Photography” on April 30 and May 1, 2026. The symposium is organized by Monica Bravo, Princeton University; Katherine A. Bussard, Princeton University Art Museum; and Brendan Fay, School of Art and Design, Eastern Michigan University.  

Amy Sacksteder participating in Ceramics x Fiber

Ceramics x Fiber:  Spotlighting Detroit’s Collaborative Craft Community at NCECA brings together 120 artists—primarily from the Detroit-metro area—for a large-scale, collaborative exhibition presented during the 60th Annual Conference of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (NCECA), taking place March 25–28, 2026, in Detroit, MI. Ceramics x Fiber is curated by Jessika Edgar and Katie Schulman.

Learn more about the School of Art & Design