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 2013
Notes on the Politics of the Auteur: Stanley Kubrick, Wes Anderson, and the Spectator, Michael Perreault
"Kill the Indian, Save the Man," Americanization through Education: Richard Henry Pratt's Legacy, Lindsay Peterson
Uphams Corner and "Other" Spaces: Racialized Youth Identities in Boston's Cape Verdean Community, Jessica F. Pires
Unknotting Number and Combinatorial Sutured Manifold Theory, Alexander Rasmussen
Gender, Nature, and the Fairytale Structure in Robin McKinley's Works, Molly Rogers
Finite to Fail, Infinite to Venture: Interactivism and Relational Ethics, Rachel A. Rosenbaum
Scripture and Fiction: An Aesthetic Approach to The Little Pilgrim, Brian Russo
Through the Eyes of Urban Students: Educational Inequality and Socioeconomic Disparities in Santiago, Chile, Hillary Sapanski
Repercussions on the Educational System? The Argentine Example of a Conditional Cash Transfer Program: Asignación Universal por Hijo (AUH), Grace Schlesinger
First Year Collegiate Academic Achievement: Do Athletes Perform at the Same Level as Their Peers?, justine m. seraganian
Massive Gravity Theories, Greg Seyfarth
Gendered Geographies and Coded Spaces in Urban Tehran, Shireen Smalley
Relationship of Cross-Linking Potential to Mechanism of Cell Death, Adam N. Spierer
Climate Change and Epizootic Shell Disease in American Lobsters (Homarus americanus): Is Maine's Most Valuable Fishery Doomed?, Michael W. Stephens Jr.
When the Confederates Terrorized Maine: The Battle of Portland Harbor, Carter Stevens
Honors Theses from 2012
The Radon Transform and the Mathematics of Medical Imaging, Jen Beatty
Examination of Spatial Variations in Recrystallization Mechanisms in Quartz, Emma N. Beck
The Side Effects of Medical Marijuana: The Impact of Legalization on Marijuana and Alcohol Consumption, Anne M. Burton
Forecasting the Future: The Early United States Weather Bureau, Robert T. Canning
In Favor of Riding Bikes and other poems, Jenny Chen
A Poet of the Sikhs: Aesthetic Embodiment in the Poetry of a Young and Elderly Bhai Vir Singh, Todd Curcuru
Virginia Woolf and the Language of the Mind, Angelica D'Aiello
The Effectiveness of Capital Controls on Capital Inflows in Emerging Markets, Kathleen A. Davis
Knocking from the Inside: Poems, Elise DeSimone
Like a Fish in Dark Water, Lucy Dotson
The Influence of Framing Effects and Regret on Health Decision-Making, Sarah Falkof
A Violent Language: An Exploration of Gender, Class, and the Possibility of Narrative Transcendence, Veronica Foster
After the Rush and other poems, Rachel Goff
The Foundling, Jenna Gundersen
Recurrence Relations, Fractals, and Chaos: Implications for Analyzing Gene Structure, Sarah. M. Harmon
Island Voices, Sarah Hirsch
Cameras, Satellites, and Surveys: A Multi-Platform Approach to Monitoring Lake Conservation Behavior, Daniel D. Homeier
Edible Activism: Food and the Counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s, Sandra Johnson
Geodynamic Constraints on the Flow of Samoan-Plume Mantle into the Northern Lau Basin, Nathan Katsiaficas
“Called Her Women Together” Home Birth in Maine, Margaret Kruithoff
From Pond to Pump: Microalgae as a Feedstock for Biodiesel, Anna H. Leavitt
The Development and Morphology of Zebrafish after Embryonic Ethanol Exposure, Frances Lee
Odd or Even: Uncovering Parity of Rank in a Family of Rational Elliptic Curves, Anika Lindemann
Should She Run? The Decision for Female Congressíenal Candidates, Laura . J. Maloney
Northern Dragons: Transformations of Manchu Male Identity during the Early and Mid-Qing (1644-1795), Fiona R. Masland
The Socio-Spiritual Value of Zombie Horror Films, Sierra N. Medling
Isometries and Spontaneous Lorentz Violation in General Relativity, Greg Merritt
Revisions of Day, Matthieu Nadeau
A Web Application in REST: The design, implementation, and evaluation of a web application based on REpresentational State Transfer, William O’Brien
Swim Swam Swum, Grant Patch
Electronic Detection of Ultra Cold Neutral Plasma, Nirakar Poudel
Damaged Pieces, Lindsay Putnam
Reintroduction of the South China Tiger: Lessons, Assessments, and Implications, Yiyuan Qin
Royal Crisis: Masculinity in Disney Princess Films, Kathleen Ricciardi
The Sexual Brain: Essentialism in Queer Popular Science A Study of the Science of Dr. Simon LeVay, Nicole G. Sintetos
The Effect of Democracy on Economic Growth, Amy Slipowitz
Nine, Emily C. Stuart
What Causes Ministers of Finance to Get Fired?, Bradley Turner
Return from Exile: The Untold Story of Pinochet-Era Exiles' Reintegration in Chile, Katy Wassam
'The saddest word[s] of all': Quentin Compson's Derridean Obsession with a Great Southern Babel of Myth, Time, & Language in a Selection of William Faulkner's Fiction, Dashiell Wasserman
MILLENNIALS: A Collection of Short Stories, Aliya Weiss
Clamor and other poems, Winsor Wesson
Life in Color, Lucy Wilhelms
Mediums Change, Fears Stay the Same, Lucy Wilhelms
Let Them Eat Cake, Courtney Yeager
Let Them Eat Cake, Courtney Yeager
Honors Theses from 2011
Biomass Energy at Colby College, Rachel E. Baron
Zooplankton of the Belgrade Lakes: The Influence of Top-Down and Bottom-Up Forces in Family Abundance, Kimberly M. Bittler
The One That Carries You Away: Essays, Blair S. Braverman
Lawns and Backyards, Darcy K. Bullock
Happy Pills: A History and Critique of Antidepressant Technology, Sarah M. Carter
Optimization and Analysis of a Model of the Mammalian Circadian Clock, Andrew M. Cox
Communicating Health Care Options: Dominican Herbal Remedies in the Dominican Republic and New York City, Marisa K. Crommett
Do male physiological condition and territory quality affect female choice in the Brown Anole, Anolis sagrei?, Sarah P. Flanagan
The Ku Klux Klan: The Transformation from a Fraternity into a Religious Denomination, Amanda L. Forrester
The Director as God: Pedro Almodóvar's Quest for Ultimate Control in Relation to his Representations of Spanish Women, Elizabeth A. L. Fort
From Victims and Villains to Protagonists: Immigration and Citizenship in Modern Italy, Rachel Gleicher
Economic Development Under Dominant-Party Regimes, Christopher J. Gorud
PlayZam: An Online Learning Environment, Peter A. Graham and Sarah M. Harmon
Unpacking the Past: Collection and Recollection in Virginia Woolf and Walter Benjamin, Duncan H. Hardock
Who Shall Trace the Void?’ The Marginalization of the Modern City in Lord Byron and the Shelleys’ Authoritative Representations of Rome, Elizabeth A. Hathaway
Genes on Trial: An Evaluation of Gene Therapy in Print Media, Hana L. Haver
The Biased White Reader: Reading, Revisiting, and Revising Racial Identity through Mark Twain’s Pudd’nhead Wilson and Toni Morrison’s Beloved, Catherine W. Hawkins
The Flypaper and Teflon Effect: Evidence From China, Cong Sheng Lyoe Lee
’Is Blooming Budding Withering?’: A Study of Samuel Beckett’s Extension into the Poetics of James Joyce, Kevin Lucas
Summer Camp As A Rite Of Passage: An Explication Of Camp As A Transformative Experience, Deborah J. Merzbach
The Tubercular Prostitute: Contaminating the Consumptive Courtesan in La Dame Aux Camellias, Katherine W. Muto
Keeping Nuclear Programs From Becoming Nuclear Weapons: A Game Theoretic and Econometric Analysis, Benjamin Guy Ogden
Hastening the Wheels of Change: International Cold War Pressure and Civil Rights Reform During the Truman Presidency, Caley A. Robertson
State Leadership for Safer Chemicals Policy Reform: Lessons from California, Maine, Minnesota and Washington, Michelle A. Russell
Buffernomics: Assessing Willingness to Pay for Lake Conservation on North Pond and East Pond, Sophie D. Sarkar
The Effect of Identification Style on Confidence Inflation in Eyewitness Testimony, Kelsey L. Stratton
The impact of tricaine methanesulfonate, 2-phenoxyethanol, and carvone-methyl salicylate on the innate immune response of zebrafish (Danio rerio), Charles R. Wulff
We the Peoples of the United States of America: Constituting American Identities through Pluralism and Narrative, Michael .. Yohai
Stasis Past Living and other poems, Nicole Ziemlak
Honors Theses from 2010
Cytotoxicity of Diepoxybutane and Epichlorohydrin in Relation to Stages of the Cell Cycle, Bethany L. Bartley
Soviet Education: Communism in the Classroom, Alison W. Berryman
Race & Rock & Roll: A Visual Analysis of Rolling Stone Cover Photography, Erica D. Block
Describing Gray Wolf Movement Using Brownian Motion and PDEs, Ashley M. Blum
Analysis of the Electron Withdrawing Capability of Acetylene Groups for Promoting Nucleophilic Aromatic Substitution, Eric D. Braunstein