The project was an example of an innovative model, Vertically Integrated Projects (VIP), that strives for a new level of collaboration across fields and areas of expertise. 

Higher education has long championed interdisciplinary thinking. But the structures that organize campus life can hinder collaboration: faculty work inside their departments, course credits count towards a specific major, and funding streams can be limiting. A student who wants to work on a problem that spans geography, public health, psychology, and statistics doesn’t have a natural home — they have four separate ones. 

The VIP model is designed to address that division. Last spring’s project was centered on a thorny research question: How can we better understand the spatial distribution of food security and diet quality in an urban healthy-food priority area, Duluth’s Central Hillside?  

"This study is a vital piece of a larger research agenda aimed at uncovering why so many residents in Duluth’s Central Hillside and Lincoln Park neighborhoods continue to face generational nutritional insecurity," said Dr. Aparna Katre, Interdisciplinary Studies Program Director. 

Amelia Pons (Mathematics and Statistics & Actuarial Science ‘27) is the quantitative backbone of the project, while Tabitha Butler (Psychology and Criminology ‘28) is thinking about the people behind the data points. Jared Lehrer (Environment, Sustainability, and Geography ‘26) and Sydney Ford (Environmental Sustainability and Geography and GIS ‘28) translated raw data into maps. They’re using a tool called ArcGIS Online to help visualize the distribution by demographics, transit access, retail food access, and other dimensions of nutritional security into a picture of the Central Hillside that no single dataset could tell on its own. The data were collected by Dr. Katre’s Honors class in Fall 2025. 

"Our hope is that the students involved can see the big picture and take real pride in their contributions to this process," Katre said.

What separates this undergraduate research project from others is the long-term investment in the community. As students graduate, more will be invited into the fold. Those who have been with the project for a while will naturally become leaders, ensuring knowledge continuity. Students will be graded based on their own initiative in the project, technical knowledge, and teamwork/leadership within the project. 

The team is working toward formal recognition in the form of a one-credit course that any student can join, regardless of major. The course proposal is still being developed and institutional approvals are ahead of them. Even before it officially counts for anything, students are already invested, proving that the appetite for interdisciplinary collaboration is very real. "I am truly excited to see the collaboration, integrative thinking, and civic-mindedness these students will sharpen as they work through this project," Katre noted.

Proposals for Vertically Integrated Projects (VIPs) are due on October 1st: fill out this form.