Art training can help engineers think more creatively, some grad students say

Two doctoral students in the ASU School of Arts, Media + Engineering in the Herberger Institute, Margaret Duff and Nicole Lehrer, are part of an article in the U.S. News & World Report website about "a new movement in engineering schools toward the interdisciplinary study of science and art."

Arizona State University, Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are identified as among universities incorporating art studies to help engineering students think more creatively.

"Artists can teach you to be more open to new things and to think about things in different ways,'' Duff said in the article.

Lehrer, who double-majored as an undergraduate in biomedical engineering and painting, is using computer graphics in her research at the School of Arts Media and Engineering to help stroke victims regain use of their arms.

The School of Arts, Media + Engineering is a collaborative prorgram between the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts and the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering.