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, is asked to archive his or her project in Digital Commons so that it may be made available to the Colby community and to the world at large.
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
Electoral Dysfunction: Assessing State Electoral Laws and Turnout in Presidential Elections, Ellie S. Krossa
Comparing the management of ADHD in the United States and Vietnam: A Cross-Cultural Exploration, Nguyen Nhat Thu Le
Investigating the effect crime has on Uber and Yellow Taxi pickups in NYC, Kebing Li
Car Image Classification Using Deep Neural Networks, Mingchen Li
Asian Jumping Worm (Megascolecidae) Impacts on Physical and Biological Characteristics of Turfgrass Ecosystems, Ella L. Maddi
Detecting Cyanobacteria Toxins: The Human Health Impact of an Environmental Problem, Lillian E. Naimie
Characterization of DNA-Protein Crosslinks formed by Epichlorohydrin, Tenzin Passang
Addressing Local Food Inequity: A Youth Participatory Action Research Project in the Alternative High School in Waterville, Maine, Aanavi Patodia
We're Having A Moment, Sophia Pelosi
Beyond the Gates: Admissions in an Elite Schooling Context, Jamie Pine
Bouncing Back: The Impact of Personality on Sports-Related Injury, Rehabilitation, and Recovery, Samantha Rizzo
Pickles and Pastrami: The Core of the American Jew, Theo Satloff
Mapping Food Access in Waterville, Maine, Katherine R. Senechal
Algorithmic Surveillance: A Hidden Danger in Recognizing Faces, Lydia F. Venditti, Jim Fleming, and Kara Kugelmeyer
Assessing the Invasive Potential of Najas minor in Maine, Kaitlin M. Volk
Development of a Chemical Genetic Screen to Identify Compounds that Enhance Laromustine Cytotoxicity, Xiaoou Wang
Primes in Arithmetical Progression, Edward C. Wessel
Historical Patterns and Future Projections of Asian Elephant Habitat Suitability, Tiffany Wu
Evaluating the Iron Geochemistry of Terrestrial Aerosol Sources to the Subarctic Pacific Ocean, Meg Yoder
Honors Theses from 2018
From Forced to Voluntary Participation: The History of Biomedical Human Experimentation in the United States after the Second World War, Haley L. Andonian
What the Walls Say: Finding Meaning and Value in Tel Aviv’s Street Art, Rachel R. Bird
Compositional Craft and Theory Across Tonal Languages, Liam Butchart
DISC1 knockout rats reveal sexually dimorphic patterns of impairment across development, Stephanie S. Desrochers
Sacrifice, Benefit, and Reciprocity: Evidence from a Trust Game, Mirco Dinelli
Welcome To Europe? Consequences of the EU-Turkey Deal for Refugees Contained on Lesvos, Julia Endicott
GEOCHEMICAL DIFFERENCES IN CALCIC HORIZONS DUE TO PARENT MATERIAL AND ANTHROPOGENIC WATER INPUT IN SOUTHEASTERN ARIZONA, Alicia Fischer
From Antagonists to Protagonists: Muslims on the Hollywood Screen, Brooke K. Gentry
The Colby Community in World War I, Eleanor A. Hanson
Is It a Dragon? No, It's a Salamander. The Supreme Court's Effort to Slay the Partisan Gerrymander, Tim Harris
The Identification and Application of Generalizable Spatial Patterns of Human-Wildlife Conflict, Vivian F. Hawkinson
Drawing Borders: Images, Representation, and (In)Visibility of Migrants on the Balkan Route, Nora Hill
Parametric Polynomials for Small Galois Groups, Claire Huang
When You Meet Me Again: A Novel, Jacob O. Hyatt
Where My Girls At? Gendered Approach to Waterville Community Power Structure, Meredith Foy Keenan
Presence and Potential Sources of Pharmaceutical and Personal Care Product Chemicals in Messalonskee Lake, Alyssa T. Kullberg
Political Philosophy of the Impossible: Authority, Domination, and Social Movements, Ryan Lam
Emerging Care Regimes: an Analysis of the Domestic Labor Market of Shanghai, Nellie S. LaValle
Strategic Nationalism: Deciphering Chinese Strategy in the South China Sea, William Levesque
“¿Qué coño es esto?”: Exploración de identidad de género y de orientación sexual en La mucama de Omicunlé, Vianny C. Lugo Aracena
African-American Poetry, Music, and Politics, Tyler H. Macdonald
Mechanism Design, Matching Theory and the Stable Roommates Problem, Yashaswi Mohanty
Arts Education: A Philanthropic Priority?, Clare Murray
The effects of nutrient limitation on toxin production for the harmful algal bloom species, Pseudo-nitzschia, in the Gulf of Maine, Julia M. Park
Waste Reduction in Public School Cafeterias Through Sorting and Diversion: An Analysis of Three Southern Maine Schools, Jeremy P. Ravenelle
Examining molecular markers of fertility in the male germline of the soapberry bug, Jadera haematoloma, Danielle M. Smith
Haloferax volcanii for carotenoid production, Erika Smith
Intercultural and Interreligious Bonds in the Language of Colors, Lucy Soucek
Silicon and tin substituted halocyclopropanes: approaches to new carbenes and strained cyclic allenes, Noura Srour
The Role of EGF and Insulin Pathway Cross-talk in Wing Development in Jadera haematoloma, Jane Swart
Painters of Modernity: A Bourdieusian Analysis of Manet and Degas, Gillian Wei
Algebraic Number Theory and Simplest Cubic Fields, Jianing Yang
What Effects Did United Airlines' De-Hubbing of Cleveland Hopkins International Airport Have on Cleveland Passengers?, Joshua A. Young
On Spectral Theorem, Muyuan Zhang
Honors Theses from 2017
Chow's Theorem, Yohannes D. Asega
“La Política del Avestruz”: The Regulation of the Black Market for Medical Abortion in Chile, Sophia M. Bartels
Temporal changes in the larval Placopecten magellanicus population in a small-scale fishery closure area in coastal Maine, USA, Jessica P. Batchelder
Modeling the Quantum Dynamics of Hydrogen Transfer Reactions in Enzyme Catalysis, Emma G. Berger
The Anonymous Truth: Honesty and Hostility in Public and Private Online Settings, Grace S. Carroll
A Novel Method for Determination of Ammonium Isotope Ratios with Electrospray Ionization Mass Spectrometry, Rebecca J. Chmiel
Failure or Adjustment?: An Analysis of the Slowing Growth of the Chinese Economy, Kay G. DeGraw
Protein Kinase Activity Toward TaABF1 in Imbibing Grains, Taylor P. Enrico
Going beyond the Big Five: The Dark Triad, DSM-5, and prediction of normal and abnormal outcomes, Shanna Grant
Tying the Knot: Applications of Topology to Chemistry, Tarini S. Hardikar
Photochemical Generation of Carbenes and Ketenes from Phenanthrene-based Precursors Part I: Dimethylalkylidene Part II: Diphenylketene, Tarini S. Hardikar and Tarini Hardikar
Normal Surfaces and 3-Manifold Algorithms, Josh D. Hews
Franco, Pedro y El género, Kaleigh E. Hoffman
Small Town, Big Future: Preparing Rural Maine Students For College, Elizabeth C. Huber
Earth, Body, and Spirit: Radical Motherhood and the Female Voice in So Far From God, Kiana Kawamura
Women, War, and Social Memory in Peru: The Posthumous Careers of Edith Lagos and María Elena Moyano, Meghan Kelly
I Remember it Like This: Essays, Robin C. Lewis
Some Examples of the Interplay Between Algebra and Topology, Joseph D. Malionek
CICIG in Guatemala: The Institutionalization of an Anti-Corruption Body, Greg M. Morano
Correcting Pedestrian Dead Reckoning with Monte Carlo Localization Boxed for Indoor Navigation, Akira T. Murphy
Social Class Identity Development and Elite Schools, Sarah Peck
Examining Interactions between Opsins and Carotenoid Biosynthetic Proteins in Halophilic Archaea, Alexandru M. Plesa
An alternative approach to training Sequence-to-Sequence model for Machine Translation, Vivek Sah
The Process of Reclaiming Tribal Sovereignty Through Healthcare Autonomy, Karolina A. Serhan