Fusion Fund: Faculty Grants Program
Design Fusion at the fringe of what's possible.
The Ballay Center aims to support high profile, integrative research agendas initiated by faculty along key contemporary themes with a goal for cross-disciplinary representation pulling from all seven colleges and schools at CMU. Annual support provided by the Ballay Center may be extended for up to three years culminating in publication, exhibition, and public presentation. We believe that seed grants from the Ballay Center will evidence an investment and endorsement of faculty research and help to build relationships across campus.
We work closely with the College of Fine Art’s Associate Dean for Research, the Associate Director for Institutional Partnerships, the Office of Sponsored Projects, and Advancement to coordinate and expand design teaching and research collaborations with industry, government, non-profits, and foundations.
Download the application guidelines here. To inquire, please contact BallayCenter@design.cmu.edu
Design Fusion in Practice
The Ballay Center coordinates and expands design research collaborations with industry, government, non-profit organizations, and foundations that aim to create new knowledge, advance scholarship, and expand the purview and practice of design. The endowment of the Ballay Center affords faculty to explore new modes of pairing design with other domains to develop new methodologies and new practices. Within an academic context such as CMU, this takes hold in Practice-based Research (Practice Research) that leverages the unique characterisitcs and affordances of the Carnegie Mellon context – bridging research with practice. Leading with faculty research interests opens opportunities to network across CMU and harness our immense creative capital.
Seed Funding
The Ballay Center’s Fusion Fund aims to foster pioneering, design-led, transdisciplinary research at CMU. This fund encourages the integration of design with various disciplines to inspire innovative practices, methodologies, and knowledge. It supports select practice-based research agendas in partnership with School of Design faculty with initial funding of $500 to $5,000 before the commencement of work. At the end of the first year, faculty can apply for additional extended funding to continue their research for up to three years.
La Casa del Libro
Stephen Leon
Fusion Fund Recipient 2026
This collaboration with La Casa del Libro began with the restoration of letterpress equipment at their print shop in Puerto Rico whose presses had been heavily affected by Hurricane Maria. From that original restoration intent, the project expanded into a design collaboration between Carnegie Mellon and their print shop to produce a two-poster letterpress series centered on a figure with deep cultural significance who connects Puerto Rico and Pittsburgh: Roberto Clemente. The final posters are records not only of the collaboration, but also of the physical process used to make them. In the coming two years, continued restoration will occur to allow La Casa del Libro to make full use of their machinery, as well as a 9-print wall installation and a letterpress printed book featuring 20 small artists around the world. This restoration is in hopes to not only return pieces of historic equipment to active use, but become the foundation for cross-cultural creative collaboration and ultimately inspiring a new generation to explore manual printing methods.
Stephen Leon
Fusion Fund Recipient 2026
This collaboration with La Casa del Libro began with the restoration of letterpress equipment at their print shop in Puerto Rico whose presses had been heavily affected by Hurricane Maria. From that original restoration intent, the project expanded into a design collaboration between Carnegie Mellon and their print shop to produce a two-poster letterpress series centered on a figure with deep cultural significance who connects Puerto Rico and Pittsburgh: Roberto Clemente. The final posters are records not only of the collaboration, but also of the physical process used to make them. In the coming two years, continued restoration will occur to allow La Casa del Libro to make full use of their machinery, as well as a 9-print wall installation and a letterpress printed book featuring 20 small artists around the world. This restoration is in hopes to not only return pieces of historic equipment to active use, but become the foundation for cross-cultural creative collaboration and ultimately inspiring a new generation to explore manual printing methods.
La Casa del Libro
Stephen Leon
Fusion Fund Recipient 2026
This collaboration with La Casa del Libro began with the restoration of letterpress equipment at their print shop in Puerto Rico whose presses had been heavily affected by Hurricane Maria. From that original restoration intent, the project expanded into a design collaboration between Carnegie Mellon and their print shop to produce a two-poster letterpress series centered on a figure with deep cultural significance who connects Puerto Rico and Pittsburgh: Roberto Clemente. The final posters are records not only of the collaboration, but also of the physical process used to make them. In the coming two years, continued restoration will occur to allow La Casa del Libro to make full use of their machinery, as well as a 9-print wall installation and a letterpress printed book featuring 20 small artists around the world. This restoration is in hopes to not only return pieces of historic equipment to active use, but become the foundation for cross-cultural creative collaboration and ultimately inspiring a new generation to explore manual printing methods.
Stephen Leon
Fusion Fund Recipient 2026
This collaboration with La Casa del Libro began with the restoration of letterpress equipment at their print shop in Puerto Rico whose presses had been heavily affected by Hurricane Maria. From that original restoration intent, the project expanded into a design collaboration between Carnegie Mellon and their print shop to produce a two-poster letterpress series centered on a figure with deep cultural significance who connects Puerto Rico and Pittsburgh: Roberto Clemente. The final posters are records not only of the collaboration, but also of the physical process used to make them. In the coming two years, continued restoration will occur to allow La Casa del Libro to make full use of their machinery, as well as a 9-print wall installation and a letterpress printed book featuring 20 small artists around the world. This restoration is in hopes to not only return pieces of historic equipment to active use, but become the foundation for cross-cultural creative collaboration and ultimately inspiring a new generation to explore manual printing methods.
Futures of Care: Restoring Nurse Agency Through Experiential Futures and Public Installation
Kristin Hughes
Professor, School of Design
Fusion Fund recipient 2026
The Center for Design Fusion supports Professor Hughes in continuing her work on the future of women’s health care with Cancer Services, UPMC-Magee Womens Hospital, and beyond. The inherent nature of design positions frontline workers as co-designers rather than subjects—drawing on their lived expertise to shape interventions from the inside out. In Phase 1 of her multi-year research agenda, she conducted several workshops on recognition across departments, the vital roles people play in care, and how to build stronger cultures of support across the system. Workshop outputs were synthesized into thematic visual frameworks and “small win” briefs that inform installations and seed a digital repository.
Kristin Hughes
Professor, School of Design
Fusion Fund recipient 2026
The Center for Design Fusion supports Professor Hughes in continuing her work on the future of women’s health care with Cancer Services, UPMC-Magee Womens Hospital, and beyond. The inherent nature of design positions frontline workers as co-designers rather than subjects—drawing on their lived expertise to shape interventions from the inside out. In Phase 1 of her multi-year research agenda, she conducted several workshops on recognition across departments, the vital roles people play in care, and how to build stronger cultures of support across the system. Workshop outputs were synthesized into thematic visual frameworks and “small win” briefs that inform installations and seed a digital repository.
Futures of Care: Restoring Nurse Agency Through Experiential Futures and Public Installation
Kristin Hughes
Professor, School of Design
Fusion Fund recipient 2026
The Center for Design Fusion supports Professor Hughes in continuing her work on the future of women’s health care with Cancer Services, UPMC-Magee Womens Hospital, and beyond. The inherent nature of design positions frontline workers as co-designers rather than subjects—drawing on their lived expertise to shape interventions from the inside out. In Phase 1 of her multi-year research agenda, she conducted several workshops on recognition across departments, the vital roles people play in care, and how to build stronger cultures of support across the system. Workshop outputs were synthesized into thematic visual frameworks and “small win” briefs that inform installations and seed a digital repository.
Kristin Hughes
Professor, School of Design
Fusion Fund recipient 2026
The Center for Design Fusion supports Professor Hughes in continuing her work on the future of women’s health care with Cancer Services, UPMC-Magee Womens Hospital, and beyond. The inherent nature of design positions frontline workers as co-designers rather than subjects—drawing on their lived expertise to shape interventions from the inside out. In Phase 1 of her multi-year research agenda, she conducted several workshops on recognition across departments, the vital roles people play in care, and how to build stronger cultures of support across the system. Workshop outputs were synthesized into thematic visual frameworks and “small win” briefs that inform installations and seed a digital repository.
Establishing SIxD: A Framework for Spatial Interaction Design
Daniel Rosenberg-Muñoz
Assistant Professor, School of Design
Fusion Fund Recipient 2025, 2026
Daniel Rosenberg-Muñoz is an Assistant Professor in the School of Design at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). As a designer, technologist, researcher, and educator, he works to elevate direct, physical, in-person interactions through design processes and products that amplify people’s innate spatial awareness and their natural capacity for face-to-face engagement.
Daniel Rosenberg-Muñoz
Assistant Professor, School of Design
Fusion Fund Recipient 2025, 2026
Daniel Rosenberg-Muñoz is an Assistant Professor in the School of Design at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). As a designer, technologist, researcher, and educator, he works to elevate direct, physical, in-person interactions through design processes and products that amplify people’s innate spatial awareness and their natural capacity for face-to-face engagement.
Establishing SIxD: A Framework for Spatial Interaction Design
Daniel Rosenberg-Muñoz
Assistant Professor, School of Design
Fusion Fund Recipient 2025, 2026
The goal of this research is to establish Spatial Interaction Design (SIxD) as an emerging scholarly practice in design through a set of experiments/propositions to uncover fundamental design questions, inspire new directions for research and teaching, and spark transdisciplinary collaborations across fields such as social sciences, engineering, and beyond. SIxD explores how to design spatial interactions to enhance the user experience in physical settings, such as homes, retail stores, entertainment spaces, working environments, and more. These experiments/propositions lay the groundwork for establishing and disseminating SIxD, engaging potential collaborators across departments, schools, and labs at CMU.
Daniel Rosenberg-Muñoz
Assistant Professor, School of Design
Fusion Fund Recipient 2025, 2026
The goal of this research is to establish Spatial Interaction Design (SIxD) as an emerging scholarly practice in design through a set of experiments/propositions to uncover fundamental design questions, inspire new directions for research and teaching, and spark transdisciplinary collaborations across fields such as social sciences, engineering, and beyond. SIxD explores how to design spatial interactions to enhance the user experience in physical settings, such as homes, retail stores, entertainment spaces, working environments, and more. These experiments/propositions lay the groundwork for establishing and disseminating SIxD, engaging potential collaborators across departments, schools, and labs at CMU.
Establishing SIxD: A Framework for Spatial Interaction Design
The goal of this research is to establish Spatial Interaction Design (SIxD) as an emerging scholarly practice in design through a set of experiments/propositions to uncover fundamental design questions, inspire new directions for research and teaching, and spark transdisciplinary collaborations across fields such as social sciences, engineering, and beyond. SIxD explores how to design spatial interactions to enhance the user experience in physical settings, such as homes, retail stores, entertainment spaces, working environments, and more. These experiments/propositions lay the groundwork for establishing and disseminating SIxD, engaging potential collaborators across departments, schools, and labs at CMU.
The goal of this research is to establish Spatial Interaction Design (SIxD) as an emerging scholarly practice in design through a set of experiments/propositions to uncover fundamental design questions, inspire new directions for research and teaching, and spark transdisciplinary collaborations across fields such as social sciences, engineering, and beyond. SIxD explores how to design spatial interactions to enhance the user experience in physical settings, such as homes, retail stores, entertainment spaces, working environments, and more. These experiments/propositions lay the groundwork for establishing and disseminating SIxD, engaging potential collaborators across departments, schools, and labs at CMU.
Establishing SIxD: A Framework for Spatial Interaction Design
Daniel Rosenberg-Muñoz
Assistant Professor, School of Design
Fusion Fund Recipient 2025, 2026
As part of the Fusion Fund's Phase 2 support, Professor Rosenberg-Muñoz developed The Living Lab: A fully operational, domestic-scale living lab for spatial interaction research, used to ideate, implement, and test experiences grounded in everyday contexts, including the home, workplace, greenhouse, wellness room, and grocery store.
Daniel Rosenberg-Muñoz
Assistant Professor, School of Design
Fusion Fund Recipient 2025, 2026
As part of the Fusion Fund's Phase 2 support, Professor Rosenberg-Muñoz developed The Living Lab: A fully operational, domestic-scale living lab for spatial interaction research, used to ideate, implement, and test experiences grounded in everyday contexts, including the home, workplace, greenhouse, wellness room, and grocery store.
Establishing SIxD: A Framework for Spatial Interaction Design
Daniel Rosenberg-Muñoz
Assistant Professor, School of Design
Fusion Fund Recipient 2025, 2026
As part of the Fusion Fund's Phase 2 support, Professor Rosenberg-Muñoz developed The Living Lab: A fully operational, domestic-scale living lab for spatial interaction research, used to ideate, implement, and test experiences grounded in everyday contexts, including the home, workplace, greenhouse, wellness room, and grocery store.
Daniel Rosenberg-Muñoz
Assistant Professor, School of Design
Fusion Fund Recipient 2025, 2026
As part of the Fusion Fund's Phase 2 support, Professor Rosenberg-Muñoz developed The Living Lab: A fully operational, domestic-scale living lab for spatial interaction research, used to ideate, implement, and test experiences grounded in everyday contexts, including the home, workplace, greenhouse, wellness room, and grocery store.
Establishing SIxD: A Framework for Spatial Interaction Design
Daniel Rosenberg-Muñoz
Assistant Professor, School of Design
Fusion Fund Recipient 2025, 2026
As part of the Fusion Fund's Phase 2 support, Professor Rosenberg-Muñoz developed The Living Lab: A fully operational, domestic-scale living lab for spatial interaction research, used to ideate, implement, and test experiences grounded in everyday contexts, including the home, workplace, greenhouse, wellness room, and grocery store.
Daniel Rosenberg-Muñoz
Assistant Professor, School of Design
Fusion Fund Recipient 2025, 2026
As part of the Fusion Fund's Phase 2 support, Professor Rosenberg-Muñoz developed The Living Lab: A fully operational, domestic-scale living lab for spatial interaction research, used to ideate, implement, and test experiences grounded in everyday contexts, including the home, workplace, greenhouse, wellness room, and grocery store.
Rewriting Recovery: Designing Mental Health Resources for Empowerment and Understanding
Stacie Rohrbach
Professor, School of Design
Fusion Fund Recipient 2025, 2026
Stacie Rohrbach is a Professor and Director of Graduate Studies for the MDes, MPS, and MA programs in the School of Design at Carnegie Mellon University. Stacie teaches studio- and seminar-based courses in communication, information, and learning design across the undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral programs and regularly advises thesis projects. Her research, which stems from the study of communication, information, and interaction design, and a keen interest in perception and cognition, focuses on design for learning.
Stacie Rohrbach
Professor, School of Design
Fusion Fund Recipient 2025, 2026
Stacie Rohrbach is a Professor and Director of Graduate Studies for the MDes, MPS, and MA programs in the School of Design at Carnegie Mellon University. Stacie teaches studio- and seminar-based courses in communication, information, and learning design across the undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral programs and regularly advises thesis projects. Her research, which stems from the study of communication, information, and interaction design, and a keen interest in perception and cognition, focuses on design for learning.
Rewriting Recovery: Designing Mental Health Resources for Empowerment and Understanding
Stacie Rohrbach
Professor, School of Design
Fusion Fund Recipient 2025, 2026
Stacie's current project recognizes that access to clear, actionable information about anorexia nervosa remains limited, frequently buried in dense scientific literature, or oversimplified on health websites. As a result, individuals affected by the disorder frequently navigate a confusing and challenging journey through diagnosis, treatment, and recovery without adequate support. This research aims to uncover and communicate essential information at crucial points in the process, enhancing people’s understanding of the disorder and empowering them to engage meaningfully with professional care. Through design-led research, her team, comprised of individuals with backgrounds in design, neuroscience, biology, and professional writing, is utilizing digital tools to support wellness journeys by providing individualized, timely, empathetic, and accessible information. While originating from a focus on anorexia nervosa, this work aspires to transform mental health resources into engaging learning experiences through the development and application of thoughtful communication strategies.
Stacie Rohrbach
Professor, School of Design
Fusion Fund Recipient 2025, 2026
Stacie's current project recognizes that access to clear, actionable information about anorexia nervosa remains limited, frequently buried in dense scientific literature, or oversimplified on health websites. As a result, individuals affected by the disorder frequently navigate a confusing and challenging journey through diagnosis, treatment, and recovery without adequate support. This research aims to uncover and communicate essential information at crucial points in the process, enhancing people’s understanding of the disorder and empowering them to engage meaningfully with professional care. Through design-led research, her team, comprised of individuals with backgrounds in design, neuroscience, biology, and professional writing, is utilizing digital tools to support wellness journeys by providing individualized, timely, empathetic, and accessible information. While originating from a focus on anorexia nervosa, this work aspires to transform mental health resources into engaging learning experiences through the development and application of thoughtful communication strategies.
Rewriting Recovery: Designing Mental Health Resources for Empowerment and Understanding
Stacie Rohrbach
Professor, School of Design
Fusion Fund Recipient 2025, 2026
As part of the Fusion Fund's Phase 2 support, Professor Rohrbach developed worked alongside MDes student Sneha Rao and MA alumnus Elijah Benzon. In this phase, the team extended their informational prototypes into a broader framework, one that meets people where they are: starting with symptoms they may be experiencing related to nutritional deficits, then walking them through the underlying physiology. From there, the framework guides users toward confiding in someone or starting a conversation—helping them understand the impact of malnutrition and empowering them to take action. Shown here are paper prototypes created for user testing.
Stacie Rohrbach
Professor, School of Design
Fusion Fund Recipient 2025, 2026
As part of the Fusion Fund's Phase 2 support, Professor Rohrbach developed worked alongside MDes student Sneha Rao and MA alumnus Elijah Benzon. In this phase, the team extended their informational prototypes into a broader framework, one that meets people where they are: starting with symptoms they may be experiencing related to nutritional deficits, then walking them through the underlying physiology. From there, the framework guides users toward confiding in someone or starting a conversation—helping them understand the impact of malnutrition and empowering them to take action. Shown here are paper prototypes created for user testing.
