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 2012
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
The “Lunatic Fringe” -- Barry Goldwater and the Conservative Revolution of the 1960s --, Nicholas L. Bromley
Shakespeare and Homoeroticism: A Study of Cross-dressing, Society, and Film, Leigh Bullion
Shakespeare and Homoeroticism: A Study of Cross-dressing, Society, and Film, Leigh Bullion
American Catholics in the Age of Obama: Identities, Politics, Dialogue, Amanda R. Burgess
Hiding, Jean M. Burnet
Lithium- and Oxygen- Isotope Profiles of a Mid-Atlantic Ridge Oceanic Core Complex: The Atlantis Massif, 30°N, Ellen J. Crapster-Pregont
Determinants of Credit Ratings for U.S. Private Colleges and Universities, Robin A. Daley
Beneath the dark and equivocal and symbolical archways of midnight:' An Exploration of Twilight as a Narrative Device in Three Faulkner Novels, Alison B. Madison Davis
Central Bank Independence and Fiscal Dominance, Roberto Delhy Nolivos
Development of a Spectral 2-D Fast Fourier Transform Analysis for Sand Ripple Morphology Interpretation, Christopher M. Englert
Family Ties: Mainstream Environmentalists' Understanding of Radical Environmentalism in America, Zachary W. Ezor
When You are Gone, and Reason Gone with You': The Rhetoric of Love and Gender in John Donne’s Songs and Sonnets, Francesca R. Gentile
Fast: The Stories of a Team, Katrina J. Gravel
The role of TaABF1 in abscisic acid-mediated suppression of 𝒶-amylase gene expression in cereal grains, Lauren J. Harris
Right On Poole, Dana L. Himmelstein
External Sensory Organ Expression of D-Pax2 is Activated by Two Temporally Distinct Enhancers, Seth A. Johnson
The wheat bZIP factor, TaABF1, mediates ABA-induced gene expression in bombarded barley aleurone layers, Benjamin R. Keyser
The Impacts of Land Use and Development Patterns on Water Quality of the Belgrade Lakes, Ian M. McCullough
Stopgap: Short Stories, Eric T. McDowell
Foreign Direct Investment in Ethiopia: Determinants and Effects, Mesay Melese
The differential roles of D-Pax2 variants in regulating Drosophila eye and bristle development, Colin J. O’Shea
Patterns of Apoptotic Poly(ADP-ribose) Polymerase Cleavage Induced by Laromustine and its Analogs, Adam N. Paine
Continuity of FDI: Determinants and Effects on Growth, Loredana Popescu
The Purely Reflected Self, William A. Price
On Perfect Friendship: An Outline and a Guide to Aristotle's Philosophy of Friendship, Kristen Psaty
Assessing Genetic Differentiation Among Populations of the Invasive Plant Impatiens glandulifera in Maine, Jordan R. Schoonover
The Metaphysics of Modality, Kevin P. Smith
Realistic Fantasy: A Study of the Effects of the Women's Movement on Harlequin American Romance Novels, Samantha G. Smith
Migration, Food and Cultural Production Across Changing Afro-Ecuadorian Geographies, Amelia J. Swinton
The Budworm and the Mill: The Spruce Budworm Epidemic and the Evolving Forest Products Industry in Maine from 1975-1985, Steven A. Tatko
Revitalizing the Signaling Power of Class Rank at Colby College, Nicholas Van Niel
Therapeutic Discourse and the American Public Philosophy: On American Liberalism's Troubled Relationship with Psychology, Clifford D. Vickrey
The Emerging Civil Society in China and Its Impact on Democratization, Haolu Wang
No, I’m really, really bad at math: Competition for self-verification, Alexandra E. Wesnousky
Honors Theses from 2009
Janeiteism: An Exploration of the Pleasures of Jane Austen in Contemporary Popular Culture, Cynthia C. Anderson-Bauer
Keys and Orchards: Memory and the Palestinian Diaspora, 1948-Present, Daniela Andreevska
The Effect of Religious Participation and Permanent Income on Suicide Risk: Micro--Level Analysis, Ivan Balbuzanov