Sarmiento was awarded the Humanities Institute Moving Image Lab Fellowship based at the University of California Santa Cruz and Isaac Julien Lab in London. She is part of the second cohort of THI Moving Image Lab Public Fellows, working with curator and scholar Mark Nash. Collectively working in arts curation, exhibition production, and archival research, the 2025-26 fellows bring their academic expertise and scholarly interests to three esteemed arts institutions where they will hone their creative skills, foster relationships between the campus and community organizations, and gain professional experience that will help them succeed as artists, researchers, and curators after graduation.