Thesis Board 2025

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

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