Vertically Integrated Projects
The Vertically Integrated Projects (VIP) program is a transformative approach to higher education that engages undergraduate and graduate students in ambitious, long-term, large-scale, interdisciplinary project teams. The program has been rigorously evaluated and refined for more than two decades at more than 40 academic institutions across the globe.
Health Sciences Design (HSD) offered the University of Arizona’s inaugural VIP course in 2020, UArizona Holodeck: Health, Wellbeing, and Design Thinking, led by Win Burleson, PhD. With that course, HSD leveraged its own interdisciplinary nature to bring the VIP model to Wildcat Country. By launching VIP at UArizona, HSD seeks to build collaborations and synergies across campus that can advance the university’s mission of being an education innovator.
At the same time, by working with colleagues from a diversity of disciplines, HSD seeks to bring more minds together to address grand challenges in the health sciences and health care.
In addition to the UArizona Holodeck project, HSD collaborates with the Arizona Simulation Technology & Education Center on the AI for Medical Interviewing VIP, led by Allan Hamilton, MD, FACS.
In 2022, HSD was instrumental in establishing centralized program administration for VIP. Kasi Kiehlbaugh, PhD, Director, Health Sciences Design, served as lead PI on an award from the Provost's Investment Fund to develop administrative support, financial aid opportunities, faculty development and program assessment for VIP. Serving as co-PIs were Win Burleson and Matt Peters, also of Health Sciences Design, and Kevin Bonine, PhD, Director, AIRES Education Initiatives.
To learn more about VIP, visit uavip.arizona.edu.