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 2008
The Effect of Orientation to Growing Season Sunlight on Stomatal Parameters of Q. rubra in the Belgrade Lakes Region, Central Maine, Rachel G. Daly
William Blake’s Transatlantic Vision of Power and Agency, Charles H. Eichacker
Hamiltonian constraint analysis of vector field theories with spontaneous Lorentz symmetry breaking, Nolan L. Gagne
Search for novel molecular species formed by cold Rydberg atoms in a magneto-optical trap, Alexander Gill
A brief history of medical radiation: from cancer-causing to cancer treatment, Madeline A. Given
Decisions to abrogate personal liberty: ethics of conscription in the United States, Jacqueline Shuttleworth Grady
Photochemical Generation and Intramolecular Chemistry of β-Alkoxycarbenes, Kimberly Graves
The Penguins' Revolution: An Analysis of Student Response to the Multi-Dimensional Chilean Educational Crisis, Abigail Hall
Language of Sex: Moral Socialization and Reproductive Education in Public Schools, Melyn Heckelman
State Political Action Committee Financing and the 2008 Presidential Election: A Detailed Look at Mitt Romney and the Commonwealth PACs, Melyn Heckelman
Reactions of Atomic Carbon with Acid Chlorides, Daniel B. Herrick
Foundations and interpretations of quantum mechanics, Cory Johnson
Rhythm in This Life: A Collection of Poetry, Maya E. Klauber
Separating People and Wildlife: Zoning as a Conservation Strategy for Large Carnivores, Courtney L. Larson
Temperature and magnetic field dependence of the electronic excitations in the nickel chain compound NINO, Lucas LaViolet
Movement patterns and feeding behavior of the limpet tectura testudinalis (Müller) along the mid-Maine Coast, Joshua Lord
Microhabitat Selection by the Tortoiseshell Limpet, Tectura testudinalis (Müller), in Tide Pools on the mid-Maine Coast, Emily R. Lyczkowski
Effects of Alcohol and Training on Exercise Performance and Muscle Recovery Biochemistry in the Brown Anole (Anolis sagrei), MaryClaire McGovern
Diepoxybutane and epibromohydrin bend DNA towards the major groove, Erin McGowan
Louisa May Alcott and the Little Woman, Allison S. Michalski
The Pollination Biology and Mating System of a Peripheral Population of Witheringia solanacea (Solanaceae), Timothy Miller
Pressure Perturbation Calorimetry and Guest-Host Chemistry of NDMG and N-MAP with p-Sulfonatocalix[6]arene, Cassandra Newell
Carbon Neutrality at Colby College, Jamie K. O’Connell
Moral Philosophy in 20th Century Legal Dramas, Emily M. Parker
Phosphorus Primer for Maine’s lakes, Lindsay B. Philips
Inhibition of cellular thioredoxin reductase by the anticancer prodrug cloretazine, Tyler R. Schleicher
Stock Markets and Household Wealth: Can a Stock Market Crash Cause a Recession in The U.S. Economy?, Ishan Singh
Representations of Grief in Akhmatova’s Requiem and Pushkin’s the Bronze Horseman, Hillary R. Smith
An Incumbent's Guide to Reelection: The States and Economic Voting in U.S. Presidential Elections, Kyle Smith
Stranger in a Strange Land: The struggle for cultural and personal identity in Haruki Murakami's Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, Laura E. Smith
"System of Silence": Philadelphia Orphanages and the Limits of Benevolence, 1780s-1830s, Brian Sweeney
Poisonous Books and Corrupting Influences: Walter Pater and Oscar Wilde, Jessie C. Tang
Demographic Differences in Household Expenditure for Low-Income Families: Evidence from the United States, Joerose Tharakan
Advocating at the margins: women’s NGOs in China, Ling U
Interactions of Electrons and Rydberg Atoms in Ultra-Cold Plasmas, Cristian Vesa
Effects of context of natural and artifactual objects on categorization, Linsey Walker
Cytotoxicity of Diepoxybutane and Epichlorohydrin in Relation to Stages of the Cell Cycle, Megan L. Watts
Diode Lasers for use in experiments on cold Rydberg Atoms, Bill Whitledge
Using Variable Stomatal Sensitivity to CO₂ in Relict Conifers to Reconstruct Ancient Atmospheres and Predict Future Implications of Climate Change, Kerry A. Whittaker
Riley’s Story, Juliana N. Wilson
Honors Theses from 2007
Can the business cycle be used to create predictable mutual fund outperformance?, Michael Aquino
Where did all these books come from? The Publishing Industry and American Intellectual Life, Maro N. Asadoorian
Agent of Change: Trickster in Ojibwa Oral Narratives and in the Works of Louise Erdrich, Patrick B. Benton
Towards the Synthesis of Biomimetic Tungsten Complexes, Eric Paul Bergh
Antarctica – Poems by Jessica Bernhard, Jessica Bernhard
Biogeochemical model for the eutrophication of East Pond, Maine, Bernadette Bibber
Carry the Fire or the Sunset Limited: Determinism and the Illusion of Free Will in the Works of Cormac McCarthy, Peter Carty
Home: A Collection of Short Stories, Allison E. Cole
Rawls and Health Care, Elizabeth H. Coogan
Gauguin : Generating Art Using Genetic Algorithms & User Input Naturally, Thomas E. Cook
“Nothing that is so, is so”: Indeterminate Language in Shakespeare, Matthew K. Crane
The Destablilization of Gender & Religious Identity in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, Megan Deeley
Geographic distribution of genetic Variation in the Rare Orchid Isotria medeoloides , Emily Devlin
Divergent effect of social cohesion on economic growth in East Asia and Latin America, Horacio Diaz Adda
Messy Love: Collection of Short Stories, Mindy Favreau
What Changes a Person – A Collection of Short Stories, Mindy Favreau
Apple and The Tree: Shakespeare’s Use of Father-child Relationships in Character Construction, Elizabeth Finn
Photojournalistic Manipulations of Reality: The Power Over Knowledge, Valerie Friedman
Women Making Progress?: a Study of Wide Sargasso Sea as a Response to Jane Eyre, Kaitlin M. Gangl
Was Austen a Pro-Feminist? Education In Austen’s Novels, Anna Gillespie
Concomitant polymorphism in 1,2-bis(9-anthryl)acetylene, Rebecca Goldstein
Complex Adaptive Systems Approach for Investigating Genetic Epistasis, Thomas A. Goth
Anhedonia and depression: Anticipatory, Consummatory, and Recall Deficits, Kaitlin Hanley
Cold and Silver – A Novella, Kyle Haskett
Demon Rum, Devious Politics: the Lessons of Neal Dow’s Crusade for the Maine Prohibition Law, Andrew J. Herrmann
Developing a Tool to Assess Human Health Impacts of Purchasing, Kaitlin C. Himmelmann
Religion and Renunciation in Wordsworth: the Progression of Natural Individualism to Christian Stoicism, Geoffrey L. Meldahl
Fun World – Pilot' A Television Screenplay, Drew Moreland
Quantitative PCR reveals preferential nuclear DNA alkylation by epichlorohydrin in the chicken genome, Adam Newman
Intramolecular Chemistry of ß-acetoxyethylidene and Photochemical Generation of Vinylidenes, Jennifer M. Nguyen
Optimizations for hardware-software partitioning using WalkSAT, Andreea Olea
Detailed Mechanistic and Optimization of the Photochemical Production Method of Superoxide, Ta-Chung Ong
POV-IT: the POV-Ray Interactive Tutorial, Eleanor O'Rourke
The Politics of the Spoken Word in African American Poetry and the Vernacular Tradition, Charlie Patton
Too Many Bad Cooks Spoiling the Broth? Effectiveness of NGOs in Addressing Child Labour in El Salvador, Ivica Petríková
Short History of Waterville, Maine, Stephen Plocher
In Any Weather : a Collection of Short Stories, Stephen J. Plocher
World Bank -CPA conflict: the Struggle to Define Human Rights and Development in the Philippines, Adam B. Robbins
Collective Moral Responsibility, Allyson Rudolph
Museo de la memoria: an exploration through memory of ESMA, Cornelia Sage
Hearing Arnold in a new space : building a transformational-theory patrimony, Whitney Simmonds
Saturday Night Random, Elizabeth Stovall
Obstacles and Stepping Stones to the Hero’s Pedestal: Reunified Germany’s Selective Commemoration of Resisters to National Socialism, Suzanne J. Swartz
Immunological effects of written disclosure in athletes, Kristen Thatcher
Voices of the Poor: Poverty and Growth in Albania, Magda Tsaneva
An Epistolary Heritage: An Examination of the Influence of Clarissa, Les Liaisons Dangereuses, and Julie on Lady Caroline Lamb’s Glenarvon, Delwyn Webster
Two essays in the Indiana family cap provision, Aimee Williams
Confronting Convention: Ideologies of Gender & Marriage in the Works of Edith Wharton, Naomi Wilson
External Control of Electron Temperature in Ultra-cold Plasmas, Roy O. Wilson
Dialectics of Diaspora Space: a Study of Contemporary, Diasporic, South Asian Fiction, Christopher A. Zajchowski
Honors Theses from 2006
Awakenings: A Collection of Short Fiction and Memoir, Emily Allen
League of their own: the competition for Jewish-American identity in the novels of Philip Roth, Rebeccah Amendola
John Coltrane: Jazz Improvisation, Performance, and Transcription, Garry J. Bertholf
The Virtues of Impurity: Exploring Repulsion in the Works of Samuel Beckett, Marissa Chin
Northern Door, Emilie Coulson