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Senior Independent Study Theses from 2020
Investigating the Effects of the chico1 Genetic Mutation on Regional Eye Morphology of Drosophila melanogaster, Katie Schwab
Department: Biology
The Impact of Acquisition Context on the Affective Perception of Taboo Words, Katherine Sendek
Department: Neuroscience
Wading Through the Gene Pool: Genetic Counseling and its Principles, Sidney Senita
Department: Sociology and Anthropology
The Guilt of Innocence: How Evidence Type and Perceived Intelligence Affect Culpability Judgments of Exonerees, Shannon R. Sertz
Department: Psychology
Paleoecology of Bivalves in the Carmel Formation (Middle Jurassic, Bajocian) of Utah, Evan L. Shadbolt
Department: Geology
Laughing Matters: Late-Night Political Comedy Television & Individual-Level Affective Polarization, Nicholas R. Shereikis
Department: Communication Studies; Political Science
The City of Goblins, Hope K. Siegel
Department: English
Is it Just a Language Exam? An Analysis of the Test D'Évaluation De Français as a Marker of Republican Integration, Margaret Maeve Simmering
Department: Sociology and Anthropology; French and Francophone Studies
Expression, Purification, and Crystallization of S. aureus MurG: Towards Structural Characterization of a Putative Antibiotic Target, Leman WI Simpson
Department: Biochemistry and Molecular Biology; Chemistry
Teaching Basic Python Programming Using the LEGO Mindstorms Robot, Emily J. Skerl
Department: Computer Science
Before the Streetlights Come on: An Analysis of the Politics of Black Motherhood Within American Society, Alana Smith
Department: Africana Studies
Journey to the West: A Rhetorical Analysis of Asian Hip Hop Subculture, Devyn Smith
Department: Communication Studies
Would You Date Her? How We Process Social Preferences and Social Perceptions, Madeline Claire Smith
Department: Psychology
Something in the Water: Nonpoint Source Pollution and The States, Matt Sobota
Department: Political Science
Analysis on determinants of Firm’s Decision between Operation Through the Markets and Integration when Expanding into a New Country, Atul Sonthalia
Department: Economics; Business Economics
Fleeing for their Lives: United States Intervention and its Impact on the Central American Immigration "Crisis", Maryori Sosa
Department: Political Science
Child Labor Amidst Globalization: A Study of Economic Development and Child Labor in West Africa as Seen Through Economic Structural Change, William Southerland
Department: Business Economics
Don't Hate The Player, Hate The Game: A Rhetorical Analysis Of Media Messages About The Partnership Between Jay-Z And The NFL, Aaron Spidell
Department: Communication Studies
AgriCulture: Selective Strategies One Cooperatives Uses as a Mediator for its Amish Growers, Elizabeth Stanis
Department: Sociology and Anthropology
Defending Preservation of the Environment While Considering Wild Animal Suffering, Shay Steele
Department: Philosophy
Hummingbirds Are Not Fab-Aceae Pollinators: Erythrina Flabelliformis, a Hummingbird-Pollinated Desert Perennial, Has Significant Fine-Scale Genetic Structure and Low Pollen Movement Distances, Mia Stevens
Department: Biology
A Concussion But I Can't Hear You: An Investigation of the Familiarity With and Understanding of Audiologists and Athletic Trainers in Regard to Labyrinthine Concussions, Jake Stewart
Department: Communication Sciences and Disorders
Stitching Society Back Together: An Analysis of Post-Genocide Restorative Justice and the Prospects for Fostering Interpersonal Trust in Rwanda and Guatemala, Emily Stoehr
Department: Sociology and Anthropology; Political Science
"A World of Inclusion": A Rhetorical Analysis of the Special Olympics Website and Its Construction of Identity for People With Disabilities, Nicholas Strausbaugh
Department: Communication Studies
How Ionic Strength Affects the pKa of SOA Components: An Examination of Oxalate and Sulfate Equilibria Systems, Katherine V. Strickert
Department: Chemistry
Chasing Gold Statues: A Study of Kanye West and the Case for Abstract Minimalism in the Digital Age, Sarah Stutler
Department: Art and Art History; English
An Exploration of Retention and Persistence in STEM Fields at the College of Wooster, Harriet FC Sudduth
Department: Mathematics
A Boolean Model of Interleukin-6 Mediated Epithelial to Mesenchymal Transition, Emmalee Sullivan
Department: Biology
Understanding, Supporting, and Rationalizing the State of Israel: An Examination of Educational Tools for Reform Youth, Hannah R. Sullivan
Department: Religious Studies
Synthesis of Potential Small-Molecule Inhibitors for MurG, a Glycosyltransferase Involved in Bacterial Cell Wall Biosynthesis, Regan N. Szalay
Department: Chemistry
Understanding Behavioral and Emotional Responses to Frames Used by Animal Rights Organizations in the United States and France, Alysa Tarrant
Department: Communication Studies; French and Francophone Studies
An Efficiency Analysis of Football Clubs in the English Premier League, Aakash Thapa
Department: Economics
The Effects of Childhood Bullying Victimization on Social Anxiety in College, Claire Margaret Thompson
Department: Psychology
An Age of Walls: Effects of Parent-Child Separation on Mental Health Outcomes and Academic Performance of Guatemalan Children, Katherine G. Thurston-Griswold
Department: Psychology
“Inner Lives: Looking at how Incarcerated Parents Educate and Raise their Children from Behind Bars.”, Akwia S. Tilton
Department: Sociology and Anthropology
Characterization of Ampulex compressa Venom Adenosine Deaminase That Superimposes and Antagonizes Purinergic Signaling in Periplaneta americana, Garrett S.D. Tinline
Department: Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
The Effect of Bacteriophage Therapy on the Antibiotic Resistance Profiles of Pseudomonas Bacterial Strains, Trenton J. Tipton
Department: Biology
Life and Letters of Mary Compton Rice, Rachel Tomei
Department: History
SkillSHARE: An Advisor Consulting Web-app utilizing a Hybrid Recommender Engine, Hieu Tran
Department: Computer Science; Mathematics
The Surge of Religious Polychrome Sculptures in the Golden Age of Spain as Vivid Artistic Responses to the Call of the Counter Reformation, Samantha Tromba
Department: Art and Art History
Investigating and Comparing the Relationship Between pH, Ionic Strength, and pKa for Atmospherically Relevant Inorganic and Organic Acid-Base Equilibrium Systems, David A. Trujillo
Department: Chemistry
An Investigation into the Possible Impact of Early-Life Stress on Music as a Stress-Reduction Tool, Sarah Marie Histed Vandenbergen
Department: Neuroscience
Why People work for Nonprofits: The Biases and Effect of Staff Retention within a Boys and Girls Club in Western Michigan, Audrey VanderVelde
Department: Sociology and Anthropology
"How We got Here": Interpresting First-Generation Latinx Students' Transitions to College, Jocelynn Vega
Department: Sociology and Anthropology
A New Migration: Investigating Public and Private Violence Frames as Predictors of U.S. Public Sympathy for Central American Refugees, Jonathan Velazquez
Department: Political Science
Internal Migration and its Effects on Property Value: A Case Study of Spain., Eduardo Vetancourt
Department: Economics
Kinetics and Products of Hydroxyl Radical Initiated Reactions with Long Chain Alkanes in the Atmosphere, Wesley J. Wagner
Department: Chemistry
Moorea Than You Bargained For: The Attempted Confirmation and Characterization of a Novel Arginine Kinase in Moorea producens, Anneliese C. Wagoner
Department: Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Revolutionary Possibilities: Anarchist Philosophy and Its Influence on the Work of Thomas Pynchon, Addison R. Wanner
Department: English
The Persistence of Mixed Income Neighborhoods: A Case Study of Neighborhood Change in Chicago, Ian Warren
Department: Urban Studies
Spaced Training in the 5CSRTT Proves Beneficial in Early Levels, Rebecca Renee Warren
Department: Neuroscience
The Effects of Children's Literature on Cognitive Empathy, Affective Empathy, and Prosocial Motivation, Cobi Warstler
Department: Psychology
Incentives to Buy: An Analysis of Trading Behavior Among Competitive Teams in Major League Baseball, Eric F. Wasserzug
Department: Economics
The Same and Other Race Effects: The Minority Classroom Experience, Micaela Watson
Department: Psychology
Seeing Color a Little Betta: Investigating the role of tyr in melanin-based phenotypic variation in Betta splendens, Sierra Weir
Department: Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Compactness Measures for Legislative Districts, Isaac Weiss
Department: Mathematics; Political Science
The Abundance and Diversity of Glass Frogs (Centrolenidae) in Primary and Secondary Tropical Forests of Costa Rica, Keara Weiss
Department: Biology
Synthesis of Novel Fluorescent Unnatural Amino Acid Using Fluorophore from EVOblue 30 Fluorescent Dye, Meghan K. Wells
Department: Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Welcome to the Masquerade: Deception in the Preliminary Job Search Process, Rebecca D. Wells
Department: Communication Studies
Investigating the Influence of Educators’ Mental Health Literacy on the Identification and Referral of Students With Mental Illness, Anna L. Whitman
Department: Psychology
The Sword and Its Place in Norse Story and Society, Andrew J. Williams
Department: History
How Life Gets in the Way: Los Obstáculos de Las Escuelas Urbanas, Las Familias Migrantes, y El Estudiante Migrante, Brianna L. Williams
Department: Spanish
Use Your Head: A Frame Analysis of Digital Media on Concussions in the National Football League Using the Health Belief Model and the Extended Parallel Process Model, Harrison Stow Witwer-Dukes
Department: Communication Studies
Inventing Christine de Pizan: Art and Authorship in Late Medieval France, Adria Leigh Woodruff
Department: Art and Art History
Who are the Savages?: Racialization of Eating and Appetites in Poe’s The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, Brown’s Edgar Huntly, and Melville’s Typee, Taylor Wood
Department: English
The Effect of Seminal Fluid Adipokinetic Hormone on the Blood Feeding Behavior of Aedes aegypti, Chen Wu
Department: Biology; Neuroscience
News Impacting Anxiety, Depression and Empathy During the COVID-19 Pandemic, Tongtong Wu
Department: Psychology
Mind Control? Immunohistochemical Analysis of Tachykinin Receptor and GABAergic Neurons in the Cephalic Ganglia of the Cockroach Brain, William J. Yakubik III
Department: Biochemistry and Molecular Biology; Neuroscience
Investigating the Effects of Nab2 Overexpression on Molecular and Sleep Phenotypes of Tau Neurotoxicity in Drosophila Melanogaster, Daron Z. Yim
Department: Neuroscience
How does Environmental Performance Influence a Firm’s Stock Price?, Yiqun Yu
Department: Business Economics
Identifying Cell Fate Determining Transcription Factors during Zebra fish development, Qaiser H. Zaidi
Department: Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Cocktail Parties and Semen Quality: Effects of Auditory Cues on Semen Parameters, Mahlet Frezer Zemedkun
Department: Neuroscience
Minimize Return Risk: —Using NLP Model to Select a Desirable American and European Options Portfolio, Yinxi Zhao
Department: Mathematics
Spooky Scary Skeletons: Sexual Dimorphisms in the Cranial Morphology of Betta splendens, Sara Zidek
Department: Biochemistry and Molecular Biology; Neuroscience
A Time Series Analysis of the Relationship between Agriculture and Economic Growth in Southeast Asia from 1960-2018, Daniel E. Zuchelkowski
Department: Mathematics
Senior Independent Study Theses from 2019
Infection Control! Synergism in Hippocratic Wound Infection Theory and the Antimicrobial Efficacy of the Barbarum Plaster against Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Araam Abboud
Department: Biochemistry and Molecular Biology; Classical Studies
Insurrecting Purity: Creativity as Resistance in Somatic Ambiguity, Margy J. Adams
Department: English; Philosophy
The Effect of Unemployment on Alcohol Consumption, Isabel Adelson
Department: Economics
Don’t Go Chasing Water: Investigating the Role of Water on the Binding Strength of Dibenzo-24-Crown-8 and Dibenzylammonium Hexafluorophosphate, Samantha Adusumilli
Department: Chemistry
Reinforcement Learning: Q-learning in Third Person Shooter Games, Juan Ramon Aguero Quinteros
Department: Computer Science
The Drum Break: Using the Poetics of Hip Hop as a Lens to Observe the Black Freedom Movement Post-Civil Rights & Black Power, Andrew Aldridge
Department: English; History
How does Bitcoin React to Material Events? A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis of Speculative Behavior in the Bitcoin Market, Connor Allan
Department: Business Economics
Projecting China’s National Identity: A Visual Rhetorical Analysis of the 2017 Nanjing Massacre Commemoration, Joe Altieri
Department: Communication Studies
Subverting Narratives: Queer Applications of the Comic Form, Emily Anderson
Department: English
What Could Be The Song? In-Depth Analyses of Five Concert Pieces Composed in Response to Tragedy, Gabriela Angeles-Paredes
Department: Music
Smell You Later: Attraction Inhibition Against Aedes aegypti By Compounds Derived From Halyomorpha halys, Jarrett A. Art
Department: Biology
Tying Truth's Shoes: The Value of a Realist Notion of Truth Within Democratic Discourse, Emma Arvedon
Department: Philosophy
Watching Sunsets in Exoplanet Skies, Hwan Bae
Department: Mathematics; Physics
Pardon My Black Power! The Root of Black Stigma, Antonio G. Bailey
Department: History
The Effects of Phytophthora sojae Effector Protein PsAvh110 on the PHO Regulon within Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Adebola R. Bamidele
Department: Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Deadly Tail: The Rise, Fall, and Long-term Consequences of the Dalkon Shield IUD, Eleanor Barker
Department: History
Mind the (gender)Gap: Navigating Space and Movement in Charles Dickens’ Our Mutual Friend, Lydia Barr
Department: English
The Elicitation of White Collective Guilt Through “Culture and Media” as Moderated by White Racial Identity, Diverse Cultural Curriculum, and Gender Identity, Maeven Barry
Department: Psychology
Why so Aggressive? A Study of Amino Acid Conservation of Monoamine Oxidase (mao) in Bettta Splendens Compared to Other Species, Gabrielle B. Basinski
Department: Biology
The Effects of Noise Exposure on the Peripheral Vestibular System: An Investigation of Sex Differences and Threshold Shift Following Vestibular Damage, Megan R. Battersby
Department: Neuroscience
The Problem with the Problematical: An Investigation and Critique of Typological Categories in Maya Archaeology, Hannah Elizabeth Bauer
Department: Archaeology
“Got Sleep?”: An Investigation of Possible Proteomic Sleep Regulators in Drosophila melanogaster, Oscar Benjamin Bautista
Department: Biochemistry and Molecular Biology; Neuroscience
The Social Network of Crime: How do our Social Interactions Predict Criminal Behavior?, Kevin Beck
Department: Economics
Analysis of the relationship between Prices and Transactional Drivers of Bitcoin, Christian Betre
Department: Mathematics
3D Object Recognition in Real Time Using Machine Learning, Bhargav Anandkumar Bhalodi
Department: Computer Science; Mathematics