Apply Now for the 2025 Contest
This competition highlights UGA student research in the arts and provides an opportunity to win prizes and to share creative inquiry with peers, faculty, administrators, and alumni throughout the university community. The competition is open to any graduate student, or undergraduate student working on an advanced project, who is conducting research related to the literary, visual, or performing arts or artists.
The 4’33” Contest consists of an oral research presentation no longer than four minutes and thirty-three seconds in length. All contestants must be available to present their research in person on Monday, November 17, from 4:00 – 6:00 p.m. at the Athenaeum (387 W. Broad Street). Talks must be exactly four minutes and thirty-three seconds in length. Awards include $433 for the grand prize winner and $150 for three runners-up.
2025 Faculty Co-Directors
Melisa Cahnmann-Taylor ([email protected])
Language and Literacy Education
&
Mira Helena Kallio Tavin ([email protected])
Art Education
UGA Athenaeum Gallery Director & Curator
Rachel Waldrop ([email protected])
How to Apply:
Send one pdf document to [email protected] by Monday, October 27, 2025 by 9 a.m. with the following information:
- Your information: name, contact email and phone number, degree program, and major degree area
- Faculty advisor information: name and email of faculty advisor
- Description of your research in the arts (300-500 words maximum), which can be accompanied by up to three images and/or three links to images or video (4.33 minutes or less). A jury will read/view these descriptions and select who will move on to the live presentation round.
*Finalists will be alerted by email 11/6 – 11/10 and must send a Google Slides link for the presentation by Friday, November 14 at 9 a.m.
Additional information:
- Description should clearly explain the significance and originality of your research.
- Research in the arts may include historical, theoretical, and critical research that students are undertaking either to inform their scholarly writing or their own artistic activity in any art form or combination of art forms, including (but not restricted to) visual art, music, theatre, dance, film, literature, media arts, or performance art.
- Presentations (finalists) may be accompanied by visual slides. Media should be used to support and illustrate the presentation, not as a substitute for it.
Important Dates:
- 10/27/25, 9 a.m., submission deadline for 4’33” proposals
- 11/06/25 – 11/10/25, finalists receive notification
- 11/14/25, 9 a.m., finalists submit slides link for presentation
- 11/17/25, 3 p.m., finalists arrive to set up for presentation; 4 – 6 p.m. event at the Athenaeum (https://art.uga.edu/athenaeum)
Jiayi Guo, Michael Gray, Elizabeth Debban, and Zihan “Sandra” Lin-Nanni
Grand Prize Winner
Michael Gray
TESOL and World Language Education | Advisor: Ruth Harman
“Reimagining Literacy Through Manga: A Multimodal Approach to Language Learning”
Runners-Up
Elizabeth Debban
EdS, Art Education | Advisor: Christina Hanawalt
“Listening to Objects: New Materialism in the High School Art Classroom”
Jiayi Guo
Ph.D., Art Education | Advisor: Mira Kallio-Tavin
“Rethinking Pests: A Contemporary Art Practice Connecting Art, Science, and the Natural World”
Zihan “Sandra” Lin-Nanni
Ph.D., Language and Literacy Education | Advisor: Dr. Melisa Cahnmann-Taylor
“An Asian Woman Educator’s Comedy Inquiry”
Vale Prosper, Isabella Tallman-Jones, Adah Bennion, and Keren Sahar
Grand Prize Winner
Adah Bennion
MFA, Studio | Advisor: Isabelle Loring Wallace
Runners-up
Vale Prosper
Ph.D., Theater and Performance Studies | Advisor: John Bray
Keren Sahar
BFA, Graphic Design | Advisor: Grace Jun
Isabelle Tallman-Jones
MA, Art History | Advisor: Isabelle Loring Wallace
Elizabeth Dubberly, Daniel Karcher, Lyndsey Cole Hadary and Sofía Ruiz
Grand Prize Winner
Daniel Karcher
DMA, Music Composition | Advisor: Peter Van Zandt Lane
Analytical Descriptors for Sonic Spatialization in Music Composition
Runners-up
Elizabeth Dubberly
PhD, Language and Literacy Education | Advisor: Melisa Cahnmann-Taylor
Can a Classroom Sewing and Engineering Activity Provide Insight into Bilingualism?
Lyndsey Cole Hadary
MFA, Performance | Advisor: Anthony Marotta
The Beginning of Things: A Feminist Dreamscape
Sofía Ruiz
MFA, Performance | Advisor: Anthony Marotta
Female Warriors in History
Josina Guess
4’33” Research in the Arts Award Winner
MFA in Narrative Nonfiction
Faculty Advisor: Patricia Thomas
“From Bilali to Bailey”
View Presentation Online
Jonathan Mitchell Vance
4’33” Research in the Arts Finalist
PhD Candidate, Computer Science
Faculty Advisor: Khaled Rasheed
“An Atonal Algorithm and AI Articulation”
View Presentation Online
Leah Dutton
4’33” Research in the Arts Finalist
Major Degree Area: DMA Cello Performance
Faculty Advisor: Dr. David Starkweather
“Prevention, Intervention and Early Recognition of Injuries in String Musicians”
View Presentation Online
Jason Woodworth-Hou, winner of the 2020 4″33″ Research in the Arts Competition.
His presentation was entitled “Redefining Animation: How They Shall Not Grow Old
Redefines Truthmaking Through CGI Animation.”
Other competition finalist include:
Annie Simpson, MFA Studio Art
Atalanta Siegel, MFA Acting
Morgan Tate, PhD Social Studies Education
Nicollette Frank, PhD Elementary Education
Paula Reynaldi, MFA Studio Art
Robyn Acetta, MFA Acting
Sarah Shermyen, PhD English
SungEun Min, PhD, Educational Theory and Practice
Viviane Klen-Alves, PhD TESOL and World Language Education
Pictured are the participants in the 2019 4 minutes, 33 seconds competition. The winner of the oral presentation was Kathleen McGovern (pictured below with guest judge Kishi Bashi). McGovern is a Language and Literature Education Ph.D. candidate in the College of Education.
Pictured with Graduate School Dean Suzanne Barbour (center) are (l-r) Samantha Lynn Hudson, an MFA student in dramatic media; Rhia Moreno, a doctoral student in language and literacy education; Kuo Zhang, a doctoral student in the language and literacy education program; and Bridget Dooley, a doctoral student in creative writing. Last November, Kuo won the 4’33” competition in the presentation category, and the other three received awards in the poster competition.
Pictured is the award winner in the presentation category Ally Christmas, a master of fine arts student in the Lamar Dodd School of Art. Poster exhibition winners include: Madison A. Hogan, Undergraduate Major, Department of English; Abigail Kosberg, MA Art History, Lamar Dodd School of Art; and Marlon Burnley, MFA Acting, Department of Theatre and Film Studies.
Pictured are the participants in the 2016 4 minutes, 33 seconds competition. The winner of the oral presentation was Meg Hankel, and recipients of the first annual poster competition included Arron Foster, Damon Postle and Kaleena Stasiak.
The 2015 winners of the presentation competition are pictured with Georgia Museum of Art Director William Eiland, who served as emcee. Theresa Chafin (left) is a grad student in the Hugh Hodgson School of Music and Beth Fadeley (right) is an art history student in the Lamar Dodd School of Art.
Graduate students K. Scott Eggert (left) of the Hugh Hodgson School of Music and Karen Sweeney Gerow (right) of the Lamar Dodd School of Art are the winners of the inaugural 4 minutes, 33 seconds: Spotlight on Scholarship competition. They are pictured with then-Vice Provost Russ Mumper, the emcee of the event.
