Indrani Saha Honored with Faculty Scholars Award

Duke students Meghana Rao, Yilun Zhou and Indrani Saha have received the Faculty Scholars Award.

Saha (far left) was a member of the Bass Connections project team Art, Vision and the Brain: An Exploration of Color and Brightness, and serves on the Student Advisory Council.

Presented annually to juniors who conducted independent research and show potential for innovative scholarship, the Faculty Scholars Award is the highest honor presented by Duke faculty to undergraduates.

Saha, a Program II major studying cognitive aesthetics, is looking to expand art aesthetics beyond vision by studying art in immersive spaces. “In immersive spaces the whole body in involved in the interaction,” she said. “When analyzing these works of art, we cannot continue to ignore the body.”

Her studies represent an area of overlap of neuroscience, psychology, philosophy, art history and visual studies. The current project takes a single, remarkable piece of art, Carlos Cruz-Diez’s “Chromosaturation,” and uses each of these disciplines to analyze how the viewer interacts with the immersive piece of art.

“Indrani has a nimble and subtle mind,” said her mentor, assistant professor of art, art history & visual studies Mark Olson. “She’s also willing to take the great risk to push what she knows into new spaces.”

Her research into art and neuroscience began with a Bass Connections project on “Art, Vision and the Brain.” The artwork used by the Bass Connections students is on display in an exhibit currently showing at the Nasher Museum of Art.

Learn more

• Read Three Juniors Honored With Faculty Scholars Award by Geoffrey Mock in DukeToday.
• Explore Bass Connections in Brain & Society.
• Find out how to get involved in Bass Connections.