Creative Futures Fellowship
Support the Creative Futures Fellowship and Innovation at CU: Opportunities for Support
The new 91ý Creative Futures Fellowship is designed for researchers, inventors and creators in thearts, humanities and social sciences. Federal and state innovation grants often overlook the powerful, translational potential of these disciplines. This fellowship bridges that gap, offering funding, support and community totransform new ideas, creative works and social innovations into positive impact beyond the university. Eligible projects must focus on delivering tangible outcomes that strengthen communities, advance positive social change or create economic opportunity.
Fellowship Benefits
Funding
Up to $200,000 in total funding is available in grants of $5,000, $15,000 and $25,000.
Support
Fellows are supported by a dynamic community that helps translate their projects into lasting social impact. Before applying, the Pre-Application Workshop sharpens proposals through problem–solution fit techniques. Once awarded, fellows are invited to the Support Studio, which provides access to the extensive Venture Partners mentor network and additional resources that build practical skills to take ideas beyond campus and into the community.
Community
The fellows cohort meets regularly to share resources, exchange insights and build a coalition of support across disciplines through the Support Studio. This community fosters collaboration and connection, creating a network that lasts beyond the fellowship. The experience culminates in a public showcase, where fellows will present their innovations and impact.
Financial Support for the Creative Futures Fellowship
As a new opportunity at 91ý, financial support is essential to growing the fellowship and achieving meaningful impact beyond the university. By helping establish the fellowship, financial supporters play a formative role in ensuring that innovative, people-centered ideas—often overlooked by traditional funding sources—have the resources and momentum needed to reach the public and create lasting impact. In addition to advancing impactful work, financial supporters gain brand visibility and opportunities to engage directly with fellows.
Learn more about our support levels and benefits or contact Jonathan Marenus to get started.
2026 Fellows
The Day It Rained Forever is an operatic parable on how finding our shared humanity can heal conflict and isolation. This project will use performances to bring improved wellness and connection to senior living communities, offering a new model for building shared wellbeing through the arts.
Team:
- ;Professor of Composition;PI, Composer and Librettist
- ,;Co-PI and Program Coordinator
This project develops a public humanities initiative that helps emerging designers critically engage with artificial intelligence through workshops, dialogue and an ethics guide. It promotes responsible, socially aware and environmentally conscious approaches to technology in creative practice.
Team:
Encuentros is a transnational network of Latin American human rights media activists that aims to amplify community-rooted human rights narratives through a podcast series, an online gathering and an open-source archive, enabling alternative human rights discourses.
Team:
- , PhD Student inMedia Studies,Project Lead and PI
- Leila Gómez,Professor of Women and Gender Studies, Interdisciplinary Research Advisor
- ,Associate Director of Media Economies Design Lab,Logistics and Operations Coordinator
From electricity bills to data centers, forces shaping communities are complex. This project pairs 91ý students with middle schools to explore energy and artificial intelligence, building skills to reason through complexity and bring conversations home, as these issues do not pick sides, and neither does science.
Team:
- Nirav S. Patel,Assistant Teaching Professor of Environmental Studies and aSPIKE Faculty Affiliate, PI
Through a series of workshops, formerly incarcerated participants will create three-dimensional architectural models of prison spaces where they experienced temperature extremes. Context and recommendations for policy changes will be developed by participants and will accompany models in written or audio formats.
Team:
- Sophie Weston Chien,Assistant Professor of Environmental Design, Co-PI and Architecture Lead
- Liz Corrado, PhD Student inEnvironmental Studies,Co-PI and Policy Lead
- David Ciplet,Associate Professor of Environmental Studies,Co-PI and Policy Advisor
- Shawhin Roudbari,Associate Professor of Environmental Design, Co-PI and Architecture Advisor
"Her Sound, Our Story" celebrates Colorado's jazz heritage through newly commissioned works by four women composers inspired by local jazz legends. Through recording, storytelling and a free public presentation, the project honors cultural legacy, fosters community connection and expands representation in jazz.
Team:
- ,Assistant Professor of Jazz Studies;Creator, Artistic Director and PI
The aim of this project is to co-design, pilot and refine Mentor BWell, an evidence-based educator wellness mentoring model, for Boulder Valley School District’s induction program. The project seeks to strengthen mentors' wellbeing and leadership capacities and enhance the induction experience for all involved.
Team:
- ,,PI
- ,, Co-PI
Mountain communities confront issues of environmental stewardship, economic survival, industrial expansion and regional identity. Mining the Sun creates new platforms for civic engagement and community development through documentary art practice, creative storytelling and the curation of archival media.
Team:
- Hanna Rose Shell, Professor of Cinema Studies, Moving Image Arts, Art and Art History
This project calculates the probabilities of African origins by tracing slave routes from inland conflict zones to Atlantic slave ships. Combining historical records and spatial statistical modeling, it transforms complex research into an interactive resource for educators, museums and descendant communities.
Team:
- Henry Lovejoy,Associate Professor of History andDirector of the Digital Slavery Research Lab,PI and Director
- Eric Vance,Associate Professor of Applied MathematicsandLab of Interdisciplinary Statistical Analysis,Co-PI and Director
- Kartikay Chadha, Web Development and Technical Partner (Walk With Web)
Noetic Commons produces participatory art installations and public documentation in which audiences encounter speculative futures defined by who controls their neural data. The work advances public understanding of neurorights and consent in an era of expanding consumer neurotechnology.
Team:
- , Graduate Student inCreative Technology & Design and at theATLAS Institute, Artist-Researcher and PI
- , PhD Candidate inCritical Media Practicesand at theInstitute of Cognitive Science,Artist-Researcher
Squishyd translates 91ý metamaterial research into customizable sensory fidget tools that support focus, self-regulation and well-being. By combining engineering, design and neurodiversity research, the project creates adaptive tactile experiences through science-backed play.
Team:
- ,Assistant Professor of Environmental Design, Principal Investigator (PI)
- ,Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering,Co-PI
- ,Associate Professor at the ATLAS Institute, Co-PI
- ,Embark Startup Founder with Venture Partners,Co-PI
The investigations that follow mass shootings frequently reveal missed opportunities to interrupt the attacker’s violence. The Targeted Violence Lethality Assessment Protocol is a 12-question tool to help law enforcement agencies and corporations evaluate an individual’s risk for violence and identify interventions.
Team:
- ,, PI