“Transformations in Engineering and the Arts” is an undergraduate course that integrates engineering with artistic approaches to visual media, sound, structures, and movement.

Students learn from faculty members in engineering, music, dance, and visual arts, and develop projects that transform concepts across disciplines. Engineering professors Naomi Leonard ’85 and Maria Garlock conceived of the course along with the Council
on Science and Technology (CST) staff.

Leonard and Garlock first taught the course in 2016, together with music lecturer Jeffrey Snyder, and engineering professors Adam Finkelstein and Sigrid Adriaenssens. The CST hosts the course in its StudioLab space.

In a 2024 project led by Senior Lecturer in Visual Arts Martha Friedman, students created prints using platinum-cure silicone rubber. They learned how the rubber’s polymerization reaction affects material properties like viscosity and flexibility, bringing together engineering principles and artistic practice.