An Honors Senior Project is required for graduation through the WWU Honors College. The Senior Project serves as a “capstone” experience, synthesizing what students have done in their entire education, including but not limited to their work in the major and in Honors.
The term, Senior Project, is vague, and for a reason. The term “Senior Thesis” is easily available, but it is one the WWU Honors College deliberately has avoided. While the project must be “product oriented,” i.e., there must be something tangible at the end of the process, it may be a long paper, that is a thesis, but it may also take several other forms, e.g., a recital, a painting, an album, a bound book, all of which have been quite successful senior projects.
2023
Facing the Music: Reflections from a Classically Trained Violinist, Olivia Palmer
The Call of Muscari, Sophia Passarelli
The Preacher's Child, Sam Pearce
The Power of Play: Theatre’s Potential for Healing the Wounds of Capitalism, Danielle Phillips
Revolutionizing Solar: A Portable Solar Solution for Anywhere, Anytime Use, Shelby Powers
Double Trouble: Applying Deep Learning to EBS Systems, Noah Reneau, Hidemi Mitani Shen, Nicholas Chandler, and Ian Pourlotfali
'An Indigenous Reckoning': An Indigifutures Production, Jayden Robles
Liberty Without Love: An Investigation of Antebellum Slave Narratives and American Freedom, Hallie Rogers
Quanta: Queering Video Games, Fyn Rose
“Emotions and the Ocean”: Integrating Social-Emotional Learning into a Fifth-Grade Science Curriculum, Madison Rossen
An Overview of Background and Experimental Methods Used to Investigate a ~23-24 nucleotide small RNA pathway and its Links to Genome Stability, Abigail Ruddick
The Foreign Earth: An Exercise in Speculative Biology, Aidyn Ruf
The Study of Peace: Proposing and Designing a Peace Studies Class for WWU, Clarice Ruhlin-Hicks
Not Not Double Negation, Jagmeet Sahota
On Research Ethics: A Proposal for an Undergraduate Ethics Course using a Graduate Research Ethics Course as a Baseline, Jordan Sawyer
Synthesis and characterization of hydroxy-functionalized copper indium disulfide quantum dots, Julia Schexnayder
Archaeological Photography: The United Kingdom, Madeline Scholten
Interactive Learning with Plankton: Constructing Kiosks for the SEA Discovery Center, Sierra Schuster
Single Sex Education in a Gender Fluid World, Stella Sisson
By the Campfire: How Representation in Video Games Can Be Improved, Hunter Smith
Fingerless Xbox Controller, Brooke Snow
Waiting in Lines Across the World: An Analysis of Lines in the Amusement Industry, Adam Sorg
all patched up!: a collection of poetry and prose detailing life and personal journey, Lukas Spring
Developmental intervention with CBD on BDNF levels and prosocial behavior in a mouse model of autism spectrum disorder, Jenika Staben and Josh Kaplan
Developmental intervention with CBD on BDNF levels and prosocial behavior in a mouse model of autism spectrum disorder, Jenika Staben and Josh Kaplan
Time as a Line: Helping Children Make Abstract Ideas Concrete, Rachel Mae Stenner
Inversed Research: A study about how psychology research impacts researchers themselves, Ayanna Stewart
Rethinking the American National Narratives: Finding a way forward with our past and with hope, Emma Stiff
The Evolution of Spanish Nationalism, Anna Sutherland
Fusion Dance: Exploring Identity and Social Possibilities, Katie Taylor
Anaerobic Digestion at Western Washington University, Sienna Taylor
Hyacinth and Humanity: The Modernization of a Myth, Jace Thompson
An Endless Cycle: Borges and the Reciprocal Nature of Artistic Inspiration and Expression, Alessandro Tomasi
The Effects of Trigger Point Dry Needling on Neck Pain in Adults: A Review, Grace Truesdale
Burnt Out: A Graphic Novel, Amaya Udager
Biological Oscillator Synchronization with the Cellular Potts Model, Rose Una
Evaluating Domain Specific LLM Performance Within Economics Using the Novel EconQA Dataset, Tate Van Patten
Social Impact of COVID-19 in India and Among Asian Indians in the United States, Rajeswari Venkatesh
Overwintering Eagle Demographics on the Nooksack River, Collette Webb
Common Threads: Centuries of Folklore Told Through Tapestry, Audrey Wheelock
Frankenpop, Elliott Windrope
Ponies And Their Eternal Fascism: A Draft, Malachi Wonder
Linguae Biologiae: Biomedical Terminology and its Real World Applications, Sydney Wong
Using Mineral Magnetism to Characterize Compositions of Fe-Ti Oxide Phases of the Sulphur Creek Lava Flow (Kulshan), Elika Zilis
2022
A Field Guide to Jezero Crater, Mars, Lee Adair
Learning by Trowel and Error, Kayla Alvarado-Hogan
Gifted Genes: An Investigation of College Student Perceptions of Direct-To-Consumer Genetic Kits, Kate Amos
'Wokespeak' Woes, Natalie Anderson
Wrestling with Restoration: How We Can Restore an Ever-Changing Planet, Anna Arensmeyer
Dark Patterns: How Interaction Design Turned to Deception, Ian Bansenauer
Travel in Southeast Asia, Adah Barenburg
Connections: Youth Suicide Prevention and Awareness, Catherine Baxter
Exploring Methods of Collecting Accessibility Feedback, Selah Bellscheidt
Why Art and Design Matters, Leah J. Berkowitz
Questioning Complacency: An Analysis of Sustainability to Foster Innovation, Alexandra M. Bierman
The Vampire Tapes, Emily Bishop
Kingdom of Fear: A Dark Fantasy Novel, Katie Borley
The Cross and the Coat Hanger: Catholics for a Free Choice and the Rise of a Religious Movement, Claire Elizabeth Brady
The Utopian Range - Short Climate Fiction, Kai Broach
The Myth of Meritocracy: Factors Explaining Belief in Meritocracy Within the United States, Kaley Burg
WHAT IS POLITICAL SCIENCE? What a Disciplinary Archipelago Says about Political Scholarship and Academia as a Whole, Warren Burroughs
Buenvivir - The Politics of Living Well, Jeremy Caldeira
The Author's Gauntlets: The Writing, Editing, and Publishing Process of a Novel, Robert Clifton
Effects of orthographic silent ‘l’ on preceding vowel duration, Sylvia Cohen
The Mountain In Our Backyard, Jordan Craft and Nathan Knoch
Holocaust Distortion and the COVID-19 Pandemic, Lyric Crane
The Secret Life of Diatoms: An Exploration of the Fascinating World of Diatoms through the Art of Printmaking, Zofia Danielson
10-50: Addiction and Confinement in Whatcom County, Kaitlyn Davidson
Measuring mtDNA in Drosophila, Lola Demurger
The Evolution of 'Homo'-nity: An A to Z from Erectus to Sapiens, Hailee Desrosier
Dust, Asher Didier
Honors Pathways and Curriculum Structure, Sebastian Doll
Bootstrapping the Likelihood Ratio Test To Determine Change Points, Lili Donovan
Paper Butterflies, Cali Dorszynski
Advancing Technology & Digital Lifestyles: Facilitating a Group Independent Study, Kailey Droz
The Interdisciplinary Study of Genetically Modified Salmon and Their Effects on the Environment and Indigenous Communities, Victoria Fair and Kaydee Mittleider
Adapting to Challenges: K-12 Education in the time of COVID, Connor Farrand
Untitled Novel on Indoctrination and Mentorship, Jacquelyn Ferris
Whump, A+ Parenting and Fantasy Racism: Trauma Narratives in Marvel Fanfiction, Sadie Fick
An Honest Man: Short Fiction, Hannah Fraley
Don't Judge Me: Declining Judicial Independence in Hungary and Poland, Jonathan Freeberg
Audience Accessibility- A Study into PAC Infrastructure Renovation, Ariana Gant
Terribly Timely Tariffs, Calvin Golliver
Fair Folk, Jamie M. Good
Dungeons and Disorders: Destigmatizing the Mental Health Conversation, Wren Hart
Pursuing Faith in Good Science: A Neuroscience Student's Argument for Including Science in Spirituality, Savannah A. Hastings
Breeding Sweet Corn for Vitamin A, Sam Herr and Dan Pollard
Fragments of a Soul, Angelina Hinojosa
Synthetic Development of Carbodiimide-Containing Polymers as Precursors to Guanidine-Based Covalent Adaptable Networks, Hayden Houck
VULNERABILITY, Tee Ing
Dean Winchester's Borderlands, Megan Jenkins
The effect of polyunsaturated aldehydes on zebrafish larvae heart rate and mortality, Soraya Jessa