The Honors Thesis is a research project for which eligible students apply during their junior year and complete in their senior year. Colby departments and programs that have an honors program establish the requirements for the project and its final format. Each student, upon completion of the thesis, has the opportunity to publish their project in Digital Commons so that it may be made available to the Colby community and to the world at large.
Honors Theses from 2021
Artificial Reefs: a History, a Science, a Technology, Mairead D. Farrell
Beyond Realism: Reading the Ongoing Wounds of Enslavement in Beloved and Kindred, Stephanie Fawell
Stimulated neutrino oscillations in supernova, Shannon J. Gray
Sailors’ Perceptions of Offshore Wind Energy in the Northeastern United States, Henry Harris
Counting Conjugacy Classes of Elements of Finite Order in Compact Exceptional Groups, Qidong He
Reconstructing the Voting Rights Act: Subnational Action and Voting Rights Post-1965, Sean M. Holly
Reduced performance of ash-specialist caterpillars on non-native, cultivated Oleaceous plants, Grace Horne
Neo-Colonial Actors?: Analyzing French NGOs in Francophone West Africa, Katharine R. Kilcoyne
Increasing Police Accountability to the Citizens it Serves: The Production of High-Quality Public Services Through Bottom-Up Governance, Esther B. Kim
Bitter Waters: And Other Stories, Sydney R. Koeplin
COVID and the Classroom: The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Special Education and Policy Implementation, Danielle Lange
Comunidad y contagio: La narrativa del brote de COVID-19 en España, Samantha Lee
Morphological Variance in Mouthparts and Foraging Behavior in Bumblebees, Ye Jin Lee
Use of Small Molecule Fanconi Anemia Pathway Inhibitors as Sensitizing Agents to Laromustine., Sam W. Marchant
Estimating Heading from Optic Flow with Neural Networks, Natalie T. Maus
"Nice, Quiet Hand": The Creation and Navigation of Feeling Rules in a Second Grade Classroom, Avery Munns
Ethnicity and Education: College Attendance Patterns Among Early 20th-Century Maine's Immigrant Community, Jacob M. Nash
Contrasting Patterns of Nutrient Limitation in the Littoral and Pelagic Zones of Mesotrophic Maine Lakes, Grace C. Neumiller
You're Hired: An Analysis of the Determinants of the Hiring of Head Coaches in College Women's Soccer, Sofia M. Oliveira
Convolutional Audio Source Separation Applied to Drum Signal Separation, Marius Orehovschi
Ganar Local: La política cantera del Athletic Club y la construcción de lo vasco, Sam Orenstein
Pollen: A Secure, Decentralized Wireless Communication Platform, Max Perrello
Us and Them: Populism in the United States, Julia E. Pfau
The Museum as a Mirror: Reinterpreting and Delinking American Landscape Art from Colonial Narratives, Blythe C. Romano
The Tetralemma of Nothingness, Samuel O. Sessions
Identity-making and spatialization among Colby College's international students, John G.G. Shamgochian
College Application Fee Effects on Applicant Volume, Diversity, and Academic Quality, Benjamin J. Smith
The Quantitative Assessment of Pond Scum: An examination of the biogeochemistry of phosphorus cycling in the Belgrade lakes, Abbey M. Sykes
El mar y la gente: Hacia una contextualización de lo indígena en El botón de nácar, Jonathan Braden Taylor
From Fire to Ash: Merging and Mediating Popular Fiction and Literary Elements in Writing, Aaron A. Thibodeau
Protecting Privacy in COVID-19 Digital Contact Tracing, Nicolas M. Turner
Should We Pool or Should We Nationalize? A Quantitative Assessment of the Role of Sovereignty in Brexit, Alexa K. Urmaza
Visualizing the Range of Glaciers: Science, Art and Narrative, Claire E. Waichler
Impact of the North American Monsoon on Molt Migrant Passerines, Liuqingqing Yang
The Predictive Power of the Term Structure Under Unconventional Monetary Policies, Luying Yang
Microbiome community and parasitic infections in wild bees, Mark G. Young
Honors Theses from 2020
Single-Nucleotide Polymorphisms Associated with Bitter Taste Perception and Influence on Food and Drink Preferences, Maria K. Armillei
Modeling Hemlock Woolly Adelgid Spread Throughout the Northeast with Updated Parameter Values, Jamie A. Attanasio
Effects of Exposure to Chinese Imports on School Spending and Revenue from Property Tax, Yilei Bao
Ground to a Halt: A Mixed Methods Approach to Understanding U.S. Government Shutdowns, Ian R. Baum
Creating Dynamic Spaces: Exploring Student-Empowered Self-Expression through Art, Meghan E. Charest
Blessings and Burdens: Family Planning in the Rural South, Amber D. Churchwell
The Impact of Climate Change on the Migration Phenology of New England’s Anadromous River Herring and American Shad, Charles K. Cobb
Québécois, malgré nous : Naissance et évolution d’une identité québécoise dans trois romans de Réjean Ducharme, Serrat David
How Race, Socioeconomic Status, and Gender Shape Feelings of Competition within the Pre-Med Department at a Small Liberal Arts College, Amanda B. Deming
Data-Driven Automatic Dance Improvisation in 2D, Yitong Deng
Measuring Differential Forest Growth in the Sheepscot River Headwaters with Bitemporal Lidar, Soren Denlinger
Impacts of a Movie's Rivals' Releasing Decisions on its Domestic Box Office Revenue, Yuanyuan Dong
Naloxone Access and Opioid Use: A Theoretical Analysis, Caroline Dunsby
Palestinian? Israeli? Both?: Analyzing Citizenship Experience among Israel’s Palestinians, Iliana S. Eber
Identifying Metabolites as Markers of Fatigue in Athletes, Christopher D. George
Spectroscopic Characterization of Atmospheric Aerosol Particle Mimics, Hayley Elizabeth Gibson
Abraham Lincoln, the United States, and Mexico: The Implications of Memory in a Continental History, Emilie E. Ginn
All The President’s Men? Politicization and Executive Control over the Rulemaking Process, Josh Goldberg
Give ME a Choice: Perceptions of Freedom and the Anti-Vax Movement in Maine, Louisa Goldman
Assessing a Two-Hit Model of Schizophrenia: Prenatal choline deficiency and induced hypofunction of NMDA receptors in male and female Long Evans rats, Samuel Gray and Samuel W. Gray
Comunidad, antigüedad y solidaridad Ser gay en el tardofranquismo 1969-1978, Andrew Healy
Quantum Defect Measurements for High Angular Momentum Rydberg States of Potassium, Abraham Hill
The “Humanitarian Mystique:” Tracing the Rhetoric and Politics of Aid in Southeast Asia from the Age of the Civilizing Mission to the Present, Elizabeth M. Holland
The Art of Sore Losing: The Effect of Outsider Candidates on the Democratic Nomination System, Cassidy Holzer
Armed Non-State Actor Power Accrual Mechanisms in Times of Apolitical National Crisis, Samantha J. Kane Jiménez
Environmental Impacts of Oil Spills: Weathering, Emissions, and Atmospheric Processing of Crude Oil, Hannah Q. Karp
Massachusetts Chapter 70 Education Equity Funding in Policy and Practice, Julia E. Kostro
Food System Resilience in the Face of COVID-19: A Study of Maine’s Food Sovereignty Movement, Hania M. Lincoln Lenderking
Acoso Visual: Staring Back at the State and Gender Conformity, Juan Luna
The Residential Location Choices of Chabad Households: An analysis of decision making with non-price constraints, Chasity A. McFadden
Executive Function Deficit as a Precursor to Memory Impairments in hApoE4 Transgenic Rats, Kaitlin McManus
A qualitative assessment of attitudes toward environmental-health concerns in Vietnamese -owned and -operated salons in the Greater Seattle Area, Cindy Pham Nguyen
Hipersexualizada, exotificada y controlada La mujer negra en Las palmeras en la nieve, Bonje NA Obua
Pressure through Economics: Assessing the Effectiveness of US Policy across Shifting Geopolitical Contexts, Hailey Reed
Propaganda y progreso: el rol paradójico de la magia en la España premoderna, Alexander K. Rhodes
Projecting regions of North Atlantic right whale, Eubalaena glacialis, habitat suitability in the Gulf of Maine in 2050, Camille Ross
La PMA pour toutes : comment l'histoire et la société façonnent la médecine et la bioéthique en France, Lauren A. Ruddy
Diversity, Bias, and Student Outcomes, Amanda J. Schmidt
Politiques pronatalistes au Vietnam : Le fardeau de la colonisation française, Tessa D. Schrupp
After School Programs and Their Effect on Children's Well-Being, John Steenrod
The Intersections of Divorce, Poverty, and Domestic Abuse, Tara Strelevitz
"They Shall be a Kosmos:" Alexander Von Humboldt and the Ecopoetics of Walt Whitman, Benjamin Theyerl
Development and validation of gene delivery methods for Crassostrea virginica, Adrienne N. Tracy
Ending the Spanish Exception: Explaining the Rise of Vox, Ethan J. vanderWilden
Where virtue goes: Stories, Radhika Vu Thanh Vy
Google Search Sentiment and Sector ETF Performance, Andrew J. Williamson
Honors Theses from 2019
Game Theory in Cricket, Shabab Ahmed
The Impacts of Discrimination on Mental and Physical Health, Mahal Alvarez-Backus
The New White Moderate: Bearing Witness to the Differend of Race, Ethan T. Ashley
Finding Obscure Black Hole Growth via Spectral Energy Distribution Modeling, Randall K. Chan
Something Punny to Precede the Colon: Marking Whiteness and Exploring Blackness in Standup Comedy, Andrew DeStaebler
Microadventures: Student-Empowered, Trauma Informed Outdoor Learning Projects, Jennifer Lyn Flaumenhaft
Synthesis of Oxacalix[2]arene[2]naphthalimides and Exploration of Anion-Pi Interactions for Colorimetric Fluoride Sensing, Joseph A. Forzano
The Enbridge Line 3 Replacement Pipeline: Attitudes, Symbolism, and Geography, Catherine W. Fraser
Precariedad en la pantalla: El género fílmico de la crisis española, Lauren M. Grant
A Rethinking of Gray Asexuality: What do we Learn from an Undefinable Identity?, Jason M. Gurevitch
On Writing and Righting History: The Stakes of Holocaust Interpretation and Remembrance in Poland and the United States, Noa Gutow-Ellis
Do Global Cities Make Green Cities? How Global Governance Impacts Transportation In Bogotá and Medellín, Eleanor Jackson
Tracking the endangered Northern Black Racer, Coluber constrictor constrictor, in Maine to determine areas of conservation importance, Josiah Johnson
Basis Reduction in Lattice Cryptography, Raj Kane
African Savannah Elephant Group Size and Behavior in the Makgadikgadi Pans National Park, Botswana, Katherine S. King