Nicholas Parra-Vazquez

A Chemical Engineering & Material Science double major, Nicholas plans to investigate the significance of catalyst structure on a system exhibiting shape-selectivity. In the past, it has proven difficult to synthetically manipulate one catalyst feature without simultaneously altering other features. As a result, the relative importance of various structural features on catalyst selectivity remains generally unknown. By using a novel synthetic method called molecular imprinting, Nicholas hopes to achieve independent manipulation of the catalyst’s structural features, thereby allowing elucidation of the mechanism of catalyst selectivity. Mechanistic information can in turn […]

Caetlin Benson-Allott

Caetlin will explore the evolution of narration in Confessional poetry in the United States during the 1950s-1960s, concentrating on such poets as Anne Sexton, Sylvia Plath and Robert Lowell. Through extensive readings in poetry, criticism, and literary and psychoanalytic theory, as well as archival research on the poets mentioned above, Caetlin plans to analyze and relate two of the key influences on Confessional narration, Modernism (the preceding poetic tradition) and psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis, she hypothesizes, gave direction to the Confessionalists resistance to Modernist impersonality and thus helped make new poetic subjects […]

Tiasha Palikovic

A double major in Political Science and Psychology, Tiasha will be studying how Yugoslavia’s political transition out of communism has affected the region’s stance toward individualism, seeking to determine whether the move toward liberal democracy has produced a genuine effort towards increasing freedom of expression. She will be testing her hypothesis that anti-individualism is a potent political tradition in this region by doing a comparative study of the treatment of dissidents by three different regimes that have held power here over the past half century: nationalists during the rule of […]

Daniell Newman

Daniell’s research in the burgeoning field of eGovernment will examine the structure, implementation, and deployment issues of the use of the Internet as a tool for governance in the United States. For his Senior Honors Thesis in Political Science, he will travel to Washington D.C. and Sacramento to conduct case studies of the eGovernment plans of the State of California, US Treasury Department, and a plan created for the federal government by the Council for Excellence in Government. Daniell will determine if a combination of elements of these efforts could […]

Carlos Miranda

Carlos’s interdisciplinary project, “Beloved: Toni Morrison’s Rhetoric of Libation,” has two aims. First, it will explore how Toni Morrison uses allegory and the West African concept of nommo to reconstruct historical representations of trauma, as well as practices of communal, cultural and self possession, in her acclaimed 1987 novel Beloved. Secondly, it will propose a literary theory that employs (but is not limited to) West African cosmologies in determining the implications of Beloved for African American communities. Following Barbara Christian’s observation that Beloved is a prayer, Carlos will argue that […]

Haley Mellin

Current Bio: Haley is a painter and land conservationist. Conservation is a central part of her art practice. She completed a residency at the Whitney Museum in New York City, and a PhD in Visual Culture and Education. Haley exhibits in Europe and in the United States and focuses on traditional painting techniques as they intersect with contemporary visual culture and technologies. In her conservation work, she created two non-profits, Art into Acres and Conserve.org. They involve people from the wider arts community in learning about large-scale landscape ecosystems, supporting millions of […]

John Davis Long

Philosophers and scientists alike have puzzled over the question of how we experience the visual world. A double major in Molecular & Cell Biology and Philosophy, John will take up this question from a scientific perspective for his Senior Honors Thesis in MCB. Focusing on the transmission of information between the thalamus and the cortex, he will use the electrophysiological methods of extracellular stimulation and whole-cell recording, in order to study synaptic transmission from the lateral geniculate nucleus to the input layer of the primary visual cortex in an in […]

Stanley (Toby) Levers

Bringing together and expanding his research on Anglo-Saxon and later medieval literature, Toby will investigate the “author function” as it appears (and often disappears) in these two periods. The starting point for his study will be a broad dissimilarity: in one period (the later middle ages), the idea of authorship is constantly obsessed over and manipulated; in the other (the Anglo-Saxon), authors remain nameless, and the identification of the narrative subject is often avoided outright. The main focus of the study, however, will be examples that do not fit into […]

Joseph H. Kim

Joseph will investigate the hypothesis, asserted by Richard M. Valelly in The American Prospect, that remote voting formats contribute to civic disengagement. For his Senior Honors Thesis in Political Science, he will interview thirty middle class Americans on their experiences with traditional and remote voting formats. The proliferation of remote voting use, along with recent concerns over America’s civic health, make the issue worth considering. Secondary research will be used to develop scholarly explanations as to how the physical mechanics of voting (the way we cast a vote) impacts our […]

Erika Kemp

A double major in Religious Studies and South Asian Studies, Erika will be researching the influence of British colonial discourse and Oriental scholarship on the adoption of the Bhagavad Gita, a Sanskrit Hindu text of the third and fourth centuries CE, as the “Hindu Bible” during the early twentieth century. She will spend the summer in India attending an advanced Sanskrit program in preparation for her analysis of major translations and interpretations of the Gita by Western scholars produced between 1890 and 1950. Her research will focus on the major […]