Thesis Board 2025

Congratulations, Reed College seniors! Completing the thesis is a capstone of the Reed experience and a tremendous academic accomplishment.

Alonzo Ortiz-Sanchez - Computer Science

Thesis: Do you understand logging well enough for automation? A comprehensive introductory survey on logging

Aakash Mishra - Anthropology

Thesis: The Poison is in the Medicine: Illness, Refuge, and Humanitiarianism in Paris, France

Sophia Subramanian - Neuroscience

Thesis: The Effects of Estradiol on Xenopus laevis Vocal Behavior

Julio Edwin Medina - Music

Thesis: Genre, Gender, Performance, and Power in the Music of BABYMETAL

Sophie Garthoff - English: Creative Writing

Thesis: Contortion: A Collection of Short Fiction

Arianne Lin - Linguistics

Thesis: Maybe Retroflex is Kinda Retro: Exploring the Status of Sibilant Production in Taiwan Mandarin

Yik Yin Cheuk - Art: Studio Art

Thesis: My Life in U+2588

Ivo Nalefski - Biology

Thesis: A New Drosophila Activity Monitor: Image-Based Video Tracking of D. melanogaster Allows for Circadian Rhythm and Social Behavior Characterization

Enzo Lee-DiVito - History

Thesis: Japanese-American Postwar Literature and Wartime Incarceration from the 1940s-1970s

Mohamed Jassim Munavar Hussain - Physics

Thesis: An exploration of the Earth-Ionosphere System as a waveguide

Blix Ratliff - History

Thesis: The Life and Legacy of Andreas Vesalius's Fabrica and Being an Author in the Renaissance

Gus Grossman - Biology

Thesis: Old Growth, Hot Topic: Investigating Crown Fuels and Epiphyte Fire Risk in Douglas-fir Forests

Fiona Noble - Neuroscience

Thesis: 11-Ketotestosterone and Aggressive Behavior in Julidochromis transcriptus

Sofia Roberson - Environmental Studies: History

Thesis: The Myth of Mining as Sustainable Development: Mining Conflict in the Andes Mountains, 1992-2018

Patrick Dóñez - History

Thesis: There Is No Future Here: Drug War Violence and Depeasantization in Cold War Mexico

Basil-Anne Stackpole - Greek, Latin, and Ancient Mediterranean Studies: Greek and Latin

Thesis: An Unserious Epic? Sexual Violence in Statius's Achilleid

Gwendolyn Olson - Neuroscience

Thesis: OPC-Ya Later! Investigating the Role of Precursor Cells in Response to Neurodegenerative Injury

Kiana Fields - Environmental Studies: Biology

Thesis: Hooked on Reed Lake: Competitive interactions between non-native pumpkinseed sunfish (Lepomis gibbosus) and native threespine stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus) with consideration of barriers to establishment

Sydney Stitt - Environmental Studies: History

Thesis: Tick, Tick, BOOM! The Doomsday Clock, Environmental Catastrophe, and the Cold War, 1939-1991

Laura Smith - Physics

Thesis: Bioeffect Modeling of the Response of Cancer Cells to Targeted Alpha Therapy Using OpenTOPAS

Will Thayer - Anthropology

Thesis: Many Birds, No Stones: Abandonment, Value, and Care in a Maltese Horse Sanctuary

Kate Mitchell - Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

Thesis: Genetic Regulators in Plastic Degrading Bacteria

Miles McCall - Neuroscience

Thesis: Is Seeing, Perceiving? A Look at Visual Awareness Using Dichoptic Color Fusion

Olivia Grace Mazur - English

Thesis: Notebooks That Bear Witness to Life: Writing, History-Making, and the Marvelous Real in Isabel Allende's The House of the Spirits and Gabriel García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude

Sierra Kalua - Psychology

Thesis: Communication and Affective Responsiveness: Examining the Influence of Family Functioning on Adolescent Eating Disorder Severity

Aidan Mokalla - Linguistics

Thesis: Modulated Signal Filtering: Wouldn’t it be Noise?

Isabella Montano - Neuroscience

Thesis: Obstructive Sleep Apnea is a risk factor for Parkinson’s Disease and CPAP mitigates risk of PD: an EHR- based cohort study in military Veterans

Ashwin Dev - Mathematics: Statistics

Thesis: Dyanmic Volatility in Financial Markets: An Evaluation of the GARCH Model

Angelica Nicolacoudis - Neuroscience

Thesis: Decoding EEG Bifurcation Dynamics Around Visual Detection Threshold in No-Report

Doga Ayar - Philosophy

Thesis: A Naïve Realist Theory of Perception

Armaan Sood - Mathematics

Thesis: Brahmagupta and Bhaskara II's solution to Pell's Equation

Beier Li - Dance

Thesis: The Personal is Political: Autobiographical Performance in Contemporary Dance

Julian Jacklin - Mathematics: Statistics

Thesis: Understanding Undergraduate College Admissions: A Causal Framework

Ram Nordahl - Neuroscience

Thesis: The Effect of Gender & Transness on the Self- & Peer-Directed Protective Behavioral Strategies of Emerging Adults

Robyn Leaf - Psychology

Thesis: “Society has no clue what to do with my gender”: The mediating effect of transgender/gender non-conforming pride/shame on passing beliefs and mental health outcomes

Lixing Yi - Mathematics

Thesis: Hilbert-Kunz Functions of Powers of Diagonal Hypersurfaces

Omar Youssif - Mathematics: Statistics

Thesis: Reassessing the DHS Wealth Index as a Proxy for Socioeconomic Status: Insights from Large-Scale Surveys in the Middle East and North Africa

Gabriel Sasu - Computer Science

Thesis: Constrained Reinforcement learning using Lagrange Multipliers

Jewel Colitre - Religion

Thesis: The Board is Set, and the Pieces Are About to Move: Evangelical Apocalyptic Thinking, QAnon, and the Sense of an Ending

Kali Zaffrann - Art: Studio Art

Thesis: The Slipping

Juniper White - English: Creative Writing

Thesis: Unnamed House Story

Zihang Peng - Philosophy

Thesis: Mere Moral Stability or Moral Imperviousness? --- Stability of Virtue in Aristotle's Ethics

Matthew Redford - English

Thesis: Layers of Allegory: Interpretation and Meaning Within The Faerie Queene

Sam Gauck - Computer Science

Thesis: Bit by Bit: Implementing the BitTorrent peer-to-peer file-sharing protocol

Nadav Schul-Kutas - Economics

Thesis: Effects of Psychological Affect on Tipping

Haven Davis - English: Creative Writing

Thesis: Home is Where the Sun Crosses the Horizon: A Collection About a Mixed-Asian Experience

Zoe Pittenger Kyriacopoulos - Linguistics

Thesis: This thesis investigates the role of queer women in an ongoing language change, that is, back vowel fronting. I conducted sociolinguistic interviews with nine queer women in Portland, OR and asked them to rate themselves on scales of 1-10 for masculinity, femininity, and queerness. Then, I analyzed their speech with regard to the frontness of the back vowels GOOSE and GOAT. I found that phonetic environment (coronal vs. non-coronal onset), femininity ratings, and Asian identity had statistically significant effects on the fronting of GOOSE and GOAT. A coronal onset predicts a fronter vowel for both GOOSE and GOAT. In contrast, Asian identity predicts a backer vowel for both GOOSE and GOAT, and higher femininity predicts a backer vowel for GOOSE alone. I use theories of indexicality and performativity to explore these results and draw connections between resistance of back vowel fronting and resistance of normativity.

Barrett Heyer - Neuroscience

Thesis: Model-free learning activity in the lateral intraparietal (LIP) area in Rhesus macaques

Maud Neeley - Biology

Thesis: Keeping It Cool: Effects of Spatial Variation on Thermal Tolerance Evolution in Phytoplankton

Amelie el Mahmoud - Mathematics

Thesis: Branching Out: Phylogenetic Tree Construction and the Method of Invariants

Daniela Buchillon-Almeida - Psychology

Thesis: Linguistic Shifts and Emotion Regulation Across Languages: The Case of "Estar" in Spanish

Maggie Topel - English

Thesis: Surprising Song: Music in Tolkien's Legendarium

Anna Spollen - Environmental Studies: History

Thesis: Indians At Work: The Civilian Conservation Corps “Indian Division” as Federal Reform in Depression-Era Washington State

Surabhi Kannappan - Neuroscience

Thesis: The Book of (Neuro)genesis: Exploring Interactions Among BMP, MAPK, and RA Signaling Pathways During Eye Development

Patrick Norton - Mathematics/Computer Science

Thesis: Extending Zero-Knowledge PCPs Beyond NP

Patricio Palomino - Biology

Thesis: A Tale of Two Species: Uncovering the Interactions Between Bacillus and Pseudomonas on PET Plastics

Finn Mueller - History

Thesis: An Unstoppable Labor Force Meets an Immovable Political Machine: The 1886 Electoral Battle Between Organized Labor and the Tammany Hall Machine in New York City

Janey Thogmartin - English: Creative Writing

Thesis: I Can Feel The Echoes Reaching

Maggie Miklas - Environmental Studies: Biology

Thesis: Education's Role in the Conservation of Southern Resident Killer Whales

Bram Schuijff - Mathematics/Computer Science

Thesis: Landlord & Context Switches

Taylor Maxwell - Comparative Literature

Thesis: Blank Spaces: Poetry and History in Baudelaire, Valéry, and Char

Kenna McCauley - Comparative Race and Ethnicity Studies: History

Thesis: "Our History, Our Way": The Dynamics of Race and Ethnicity in the Social Movements of the Hawaiian Renaissance

Audrey Lambert - English: Creative Writing

Thesis: Post from the Aimless Road

Bettina Broyles - Religion

Thesis: Indonesian and Malaysian Mak Yong: Making and Remaking Culture, Ritual, and Identity

Joshua Ogawa - Psychology

Thesis: First Impressions Matter? How Initial Exposure to a Film Sequence Shapes Subsequent Understanding of Cause and Effect

Sophia Maxine Lenczowski - Comparative Literature

Thesis: From the Screen to the Self: How Feminist Video Transforms the Spectator

Ella Arnold - Greek, Latin, and Ancient Mediterranean Studies: History and Archaeology

Thesis: In Pursuit of the Saffron Gatherers:   Developing a “Complete” Understanding of Minoan Women

Lily Hahm - Art: Art History

Thesis: "Against Forgetting:" Care, Performance, and Dissensus in "Comfort Women" Memorials

Allison Jefferis - Biology

Thesis: Investigating the Role of the SPECC1L Homolog, Split Discs, in  Non-Muscle Myosin II Contractility Dynamics in Drosophila

Kahaan Parikh - Neuroscience

Thesis: Chemogenetic Inhibition of the Basolateral Amygdala in a Modified Risky Decision Task: A Model of Gambling Disorder

Jules Camden - Neuroscience

Thesis: Examining Model Robustness for Treatment Efficacy Prediction in Major Depressive Disorder

Adrian Keller Feld - English: Creative Writing

Thesis: Baile Seanáchaí / Ballyshanachie

Lucas Binder - Biology

Thesis: Exploration of Xenopus laevis Vocal Evolution using Computational Modeling

Claire Navratil - English: Creative Writing

Thesis: To Reap What Was Sown

Cliodhna O'Connell - International and Comparative Policy Studies: Political Science

Thesis: Whatever You Say, Say Nothing: A Discourse Analysis of Plural Voting in Northern Ireland

Mattie Mcneil - English

Thesis: Peering into the End of the World: Time Travel Science Fiction

Auden Oliveri - Chemistry

Thesis: Illuminating Neutrons: Investigation of Quantum Dot-Based Scintillators for Full Spectrum Neutron Detection

Luiz Felipe de Souza Lobo Morgado Horta - Philosophy

Thesis: Aristotle's Empeiria in Legislation

Abri Carnathan - English

Thesis: “Whut ‘n Gawd’s name’re yew sayin’?” : Exploring Ideas of Race, Gender, and Labor in the Dialect of Early Twentieth-Century Southern Short Fiction

Olivia DeStefano - Environmental Studies: Political Science

Thesis: Dammed If You Do, Dammed If You Don’t: The Clash of Coalitions Over the Lower Snake River Dams.

Ava Bonney - Anthropology

Thesis: Cultural Life, Cultural Death: Ritual, Tourism, and Indigenous Revival in Yucatán, Mexico

Gillan Campbell - Art: Studio Art

Thesis: Overgrown:  How Colonial Perception Affects our Valuation of Illustrated Graphic Media

Hannah Xie - Political Science

Thesis: Storytime! Congress and the Little AI That Could

Madelyn Tarara - Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

Thesis: Towards reCYPlable PE plastic: Isolation and Characterization of a putative PE-degrading enzyme from B.thuringiensis

Yours Truly Buschini - English: Creative Writing

Thesis: Metafiction (And Its Many Uses)

Taliah Churchill - Economics

Thesis: A New Age of Technology and Flexible Intellectual Property Protections: An Economic Analysis of the Developing Discord Between Generative AI and Copyright Law

Jefferson Ratliff - Politcal Science

Thesis: High Dysfunction, Low Trust: Federalism, Political Trust and COVID-19 Policy in Four US States

Max Ongbongan - Chemistry

Thesis: A Formal Synthesis of Corynoxine

Lindsay Worrell - Political Science

Thesis: The Politics of Fatness and its Influence on Voting Preferences Among White Men in Rural Wisconsin

Tianyi 'Emma' Fan - Art: Studio Art

Thesis: Creativity Entangled: A Posthumanist Perspective on AI Art

Parker Doran - History

Thesis: The Color of the Kit: Football Supporters and the Politics of Identity in Late 20th and Early 21st Century Europe

Parker Miraldi - Anthropology

Thesis: Camas and Carbon: Collaboration, Comparative Collections, and Using Archaeology for Good

Jojo Hartman - Linguistics

Thesis: I Like Us but You Might Not: Local Partial Coreference in Mexican Spanish

El Johnson - Comparative Literature

Thesis: The Cyborg at the End of the World: A Theory of the Gendered Grotesque, from Female Oppression to Queer Liberation

Alyssa Bradley - Environmental Studies: Economics

Thesis: WARPing Environmental Preferences: Green Nudges and Rationality

Carmen Simons - Environmental Studies: History

Thesis: "The 73ʼ Chevy Impala of Rivers:" Ruin, Restoration, and Indigenous Futures Along Johnson Creek

Rosalie Imbimbo - Biology

Thesis: Taking a Lichen-ing to Heavy Metals: A Comparison of the Biosorption Efficacies of Two Lichen Species Towards Heavy Metals

Kes Vounzi - Sociology

Thesis: Culture and Compliance: Identifying Reed's Coupling Processes with its Alcohol and Other Drug Policy

Beier Li - Psychology

Thesis: The Role of Solitary Cannabis Use and Coping Motives in Depression and Anxiety Among Emerging Adults: A Longitudinal Study

Lindie Lewis - Anthropology

Thesis: Icelandic Formations of National Identity through the Ownership of Material Culture in a Post Colonial Context

Miranda Ulloa Estrada - Biology

Thesis: CRISPR/Cas9 Targeted Disruption of tshz1a Reveals New Role in Axial Patterning and Extension

Laura Estridge - Physics

Thesis: The CUBE: Using Virtual Reality to Visualize Electromagnetic Fields in Real-Time

Dani Peterson - Dance

Thesis: [Dancing] with Dance: Investigating Liminality Through the Lens of Butoh

Vivian Petersen - History

Thesis: Dollars and Saints: Mormon Articulations of Shifting Economic Ideology at the Turn of the Twentieth Century

Evan Heintz - Mathematics: Statistics

Thesis: Statistical Modeling of atoh7 in the Developing Zebrafish Retina

Gillian Votaw-Leventhal - Greek, Latin, and Ancient Mediterranean Studies: History and Archaeology

Thesis: "When Philoi clash with Philoi in Strife": Familicide in Greek Tragedy and Fragility of the Family in Athens

Chloé Fling - Religion-Ancient Mediterranean Studies

Thesis: "Your riches rot, your clothes are moth-eaten": The Letter of James's Use of Wisdom Literature to Spur Social Upheaval

Linda Lu - Sociology

Thesis: Community Owned Community Solar in the United States: Emergence and Organizational Strategies for Success