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.
2022
White Lies Matter: The Evolution, Persistence, and Impact of Scientific Racism, Kim Keay
Physical properties of Brackett Emitters in the APOGEE DR17 Catalog, Elliott Khilfeh, Hunter Campbell, Kevin R. Covey, Marina Kounkel, and Richard Ballentyne
King of Swords, Hannah Kimble
Trouble Sitting Still Disorder: ADHD Through the Social Model of Disability, Rey Kistler
Software as a Tool not a Master, Dalton Leif Lange
Honors Peer Mentorship: A Guide to Sustaining Community in the Institution, Silvia Leija Rosas
Characterization of Carbon Fiber PEKK Thermoplastic Prepreg for Process Modeling, Tanner M. Leo
Extraction and Interpretation of Fatty Alcohols in the Chuckanut Formation, Ellis Lower
Blood Coagulation Factor IX: Purification, Isolation, Activation, Alex MacNeil
Indel Mapping, Lilu Martin
You, Me, and the Rise of the American Serial Killer, Keyana Marie McCain
Chemical and Physical Tailoring of Guanidine-based Covalent Adaptable Networks, Kate A. McConnell and Michael B. Larsen
Stonewalls and Statues: A Personal Exploration of Memorialization Culture within the United States, Petra McDonnell-Ingoglia
Audio Engineering, Sound Production, and Cultural Documentation Portfolio, Christian Michael McGovern
Queering The Birth Experience: Documenting Queer Individuals' Labor & Delivery Experiences, Caitlin Laura Jessica Millard
Tacoma and Health? An honors capstone project exploring the social stratification impacts on the health and well-being of Tacoma communities, Natalie Miller
It’s Awe-Fully Familiar: The Effect of Awe on Familiarity with Virtual Reality, Cassidy Ochadleus, Charissa Kirby, and Christie Scollon
Khahir: A Constructed Language, Kate Panza
It's the Holiday Rom-Com Season, Mariah Perez
Unmasking Climate Change: How the Impacts of Global Warming Alter Disease Spread and Discovery, Ellie Potts, Andy Bunn, and Adam Wright
Growing Through Climate Change: Food and Farm Resiliency Post-Disaster, Sarah Quenemoen
Coach Otto: Creating a Program to Program Weightlifting, Haylee Rawdin
Moira: A Star Wars Story, Sheila I. Richardson
Making Upper-Level Math Accessible to a Younger Audience, Allyson Roller
Improving Student Outcomes in Introductory Formal Logic, Bryce Rosenwald
The Influence of Intergenerational Trauma on Epigenetics and Obesity in Indigenous Populations: A Systematic Literature Review, Krista Schafte
All Creatures Great and Small: The Impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic on Veterinary Medicine, Amelia Schlemmer
Aramark and the Prison Industrial Complex, Katie Jayne HengQin Scoles
In the Flowers: A Novella in Progress, Rachel Seick
Alga of My Eye, Determining the Ability of Palmaria palmata to Bioaccumulate Metals, Cameron Smith
Family, War, and Identity, Claire E. Smith
The Student Spect-Actor: Embodying Community Through Theatre, Aidyn Stevens
Cupid’s Arrow: A Tale of a Complex and Dynamic Protein, Nadine Tietz
No Place Like Homeskillet, Kai Uyehara
Video Games, Theatre, and the Modern Oral Tradition, Madeline Virtue
About the Dark Times: Poetry for the Miocene, Nadine Waggoner
The History, Drivers, and Social Issues of the Cottagecore Movement, Mason M. Waller
Christians and the Irreligious: What is Associated with Religious Bias Between Groups?, Lucas Wall
Gender Through Time and Culture, Kate Wick
Kerameikos: Death, Life, and the Vessel, Allison Rebecca Yarbrough
2021
Raising Canes: Crafting Disability Narratives, Charlotta Abernathy
Everybody Watched and Watched: Illustrations for a Preschool Journal, Sylvie Spencer Ackroyd
Trade Bait: Season 3, Ben Bagley
The Joy of Cooking with OTs: A Visual Guide, Sarah Baker
Building Better Business: Creating Socially, Environmentally, and Economically Sustainable Businesses, William Barror
More Than Meets the Eye; Accessibility of Scientific Information Through Art, Rachael Barrows
The Graph Menagerie: An exploration of the intersection of math, biology, and art, Maggie Barry
“It’s Love Island, Not Friend Island”: Authenticity and Surveillance in Reality TV, a Literature Review and Content Analysis, Laura Sarie Beaty
Tracking Our Progress Through the COVID-19 Pandemic, Alexandra Bogacz
Transcribing Ragtime for Guitar, William Brehm
Evaluating the Effectiveness of Empathy-Based Education in the Modern Zoo, Annika Brinkley
Insulin: Roles and Functions in Biochemistry and U.S. Healthcare, Mia Brinkley
The Marine World: Its Misrepresentation in Popular Depictions, Ryan T. Brubaker
A Morphosyntactic Analysis of Hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓: Pronominal Argument Hypothesis, Clitic Behavior, and the Syntactic Representation of Non-Colonizer Languages, Jessalyn Campbell
Protein Composition: Translating Amino Acid Sequences into Music, Melody Campbell
Out of the Dark: short fiction - works in progress, Ruthie Carroll
Running Whidbey: The Physiological and Psychological Impacts of a 60 Mile Ultramarathon, Bree Daigneault
Fog Town: Exploring the Novel-Writing Process, Spencer de Vries
Design Portfolio for The Tri-Cities Homestead 2.0: A Second Look at a DOE Solar Decathlon Net Zero Home Design, Talia Dreicer
Long-Term Memory for Associative Conditioning and Glutamate Receptor Expression, Kaitlyn Dybing, Waleed Faruqi, Janie Aguilera, Roma Zakos, Lina Dahlberg, and Jacqueline K. Rose
College students’ experiences of sexual violence at Western Washington University, Zoë Evans-Agnew
The Internet never forgets: Student journalists meet the "Right to be Forgotten", Emily R. Feek
Facial Action Coding System and Induced Compassion, Camille Fogel
The First Ten Pages of 'Quiz Bowl', Lauren E. Fontanilla
Tim Foster's Regenerative Craft Website, Tim Foster
'Where Are You From?': The Asian American PNW University Experience Through Poetry, Veronica Anne Francisco
Development of a Separation Solution for Braided Polyester/Polyolefin Ropes and Lines, Stefan Fricke and Robbie Huton
Where, Wheat, When?, Natalie Furness
Structural Analysis of Protein-Peptide Interactions, Melody Gao
Bellingham's Housing Ecosystem, Malene Garcia
Radioactive Future, Avery Garritano
Human Origins: An Infocomic, Jocelyn Grant
La Résistance: An Original Screenplay, Luke Griffin
The Mountain and Me: Memories, Expressions, Reflections, Corey Griffis
Indium Oxide-Based Catalysts for Solar Fuel Generation, Ryan Hagmann
Greenhouse, Sophie Hall
hello_world: a new, not-quite-animated story (first draft), Jack Harbick
Reimagining Financial Literacy, Serafima Healy
Mulan's Sisters on the Steppes of Inner Asia, Zoe Hoff
Authentic Representations of Youth Who Stutter: An Analysis of Children's and Adolescent Literature, Claire Elizabeth Howerton
Estimating the Denitrification Rate in Hood Canal using Water Circulation, Spencer Johnson
Wonder Women, Zoe O. Johnson
Speaking My Truth: Voices and Portraits of Honors Students of Color, Leah Kerbs
Dear Future, Sarah Kerby
Challenging Deficit Discourses: Human Services and Trauma-Informed Practice, Brielle Lamphere
Whose Water is it Anyway?: The Adjudication of Water Rights in the Nooksack Watershed, Emma Ledsham
Redox-Active Coordination Complexes for Small Molecule Activation with Environmental Applications, Hanalei Lewine
Occupational Therapy and Treatment of Sensory Issues Related to Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Literature Review, Elise M. Liddane
Dreams: the phenomenon explored through scientific, spiritual, and subjective perspectives, Hayden A. Mayer
A Neural Network Approach to Identifying YSOs and Exploring Solar Neighborhood Star-Forming History, Aidan McBride, Ryan Lingg, Marina Kounkel, Kevin Covey, and Brian Hutchinson
Snow Algae of Mt. Watson, Fiona McBride
Zooming In on Teletherapy: The Benefits and Challenges of Virtual Speech, Language, and Aural Therapies, Brianne McCaslin
Personal Reflection on 'Boy Crazy: A Screenplay About Gay Fanfiction, Queerbaiting, and Asexual Identity', Luci Mintiero
Changing the World One Play at a Time; The Intersectionality of Theatre and Activism, Joe Moore
Ecuador’s Amazon, Rights of Nature, and the Dilemma of the 2008 Constitution, Olivia Moore