2025-26 artsCatalyst Fellows

The new artsCatalyst Fellows program brings together an annual cohort of course instructors to discuss arts integration pedagogy, workshop course ideas and syllabus strategies, and develop bigger ideas around roles for art in teaching and research across wide-ranging academic disciplines.

We are proud to share that two members from the Department of Art & Art History have been named 2025–26 fellows: Adam Tobin (Senior Lecturer, Film and Media Studies) and Michelle Wilson (Lecturer, Art Practice).

Adam Tobin is a screenwriter whose teaching spans short and feature film writing, TV pilots, script analysis, and adaptation. His professional credits include creating the comedy series About a Girl and the reality series Best Friend’s Date, winning an Emmy Award for Discovery Channel’s Cash Cab, and writing for ABC, ESPN, and the NBA. He has also taught seminars at Dreamworks Animation, Twentieth Century Fox/Blue Sky Studios, and Aardman Animations. On stage, his play She Persisted: The Musical was a New York Times Critic’s Pick and winner of the Off-Broadway Alliance Award for Best Family Show. His upcoming musical, The Pigeon Gets a Big Time Holiday Extravaganza—co-written with Mo Willems—debuts in six cities in November 2025. As a fellow, Adam is developing courses that integrate his work in teaching screenwriting and TV writing with other disciplines. One potential avenue is a "Screenwriting about [STEM topic]," a writing workshop that invites students to invent creative work based on scientific scholarship.

Michelle Wilson is an artist whose practice explores intersections of colonialism, migration, and natural history through papermaking, printmaking, artist books, textiles, installations, and social practice. She is a co-founder of the collaborative Rhinoceros Project and has participated in residencies around the world, including the Penland School of Crafts, San José Museum of Quilts and Textiles, and InCahoots Residency. Her work is held in major collections such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Museum of Women in the Arts, and Yale University. Wilson has received numerous fellowships and awards, including a 2025 Winter Fellowship from Penland School of Crafts and a 2020 Barbara Deming Foundation Grant. As a fellow, Michelle is developing two interdisciplinary course ideas. The first explores the book as technology, from ancient image communication to e-publishing, with hands-on exercises in printmaking and bookbinding. The second course brings together Art Practice, Environmental Systems Engineering, and Chemistry, inviting students to learn about natural dying and textile eco-printing.

We look forward to seeing how their contributions will shape interdisciplinary teaching and inspire new ways of integrating the arts into the broader academic landscape.