Since 1927, Bates College has offered an Honors Program to promote, develop, and recognize academic work of higher quality than ordinarily required for the baccalaureate degree. The honors thesis is the written component of the yearlong program completed during the senior year under the guidance of a faculty advisor.
Historically, the final copy of the honors thesis has been submitted in paper format and made available for research at the Edmund S. Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library. To promote greater access to senior theses by the Bates community and the world beyond Bates, the College introduces SCARAB, the College's institutional repository.
Paper copies of honors theses from 1927 through 2011 can be viewed in the Edmund S. Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library. To see the library catalog record for paper copies of theses deposited in the Archives, click HERE.
Theses from 2026
“Ancestral Magic”: Empire, Systems of Knowledge, and Hegemonic Straightness from Utopia to The Masquerade, Luca Bana-Vax
“La Jaula de Oro”: Latinx Mixed-Status Family Tensions and Dynamics in the United States, Lucy Liseth Batres Rodriguez
Social Distance of Ingroup Versus Outgroup and Vicarious Consumer Behavior, Sydney Bernstein
The Equinoctial Hour in Antiquity: Which Hour is Ours?, Evan Boxer-Cook
Effects of Gap43 on Retinal Ganglion Cell Axon Pathfinding during Regeneration, Kayla Ellen Burnham
The One and Only: Exploring Monisms Across Hindu Traditions, John R. Campana
Disentangling Hypoxic Ventilatory Depression from Metabolic Depression in Neonatal Rats, Lindley Isabel Northrop Friedman
Diffusion-Based Signal Reconstruction for Silicon Photomultiplier Detectors, Sean Michael Gilliam
Empowering Lewiston’s Young Citizens: Examining Civic Education in Early Elementary Classrooms, Kate L. Heumann
The Analysis of IRBIT's Role in Phosphoinositide Metabolism, Ansley Rose Higgins
Power's Repercussions: Executive Authority and the Fragmentation of the Conservative Legal Movement, Reese Hillman
Partisanship on Foreign Policy During the Trump Era: Examining Donald Trump's Polarizing Impact on American Attitudes Toward the War in Ukraine., John Benton Hull
Analysis of 5-Methylcytosine as an Indicator of Global Methylation in Mytilus Edulis in the Gulf of Maine, Amanda Jenkins
“Like My Father Before Me”: Heritage Reincarnated and Sublimity Reformulated in the Works of William Faulkner, Brett Karpf
“The Children’s Republic”: Banner of Peace and Bulgaria’s Search for Transformation in Late Socialism, Lena LaPierre
The Blue Mussel in a Warming World: Influence of Latitude and Location on Mytilus edulis Physiology & Thermal Performance, Sophie E. Leight
Precision Laser Spectroscopy of 12CH4 and 13CH4 near 1645 nm, Zhaoyi Liu
Displacement, Care-full Recovery, and Placekeeping in the Wake of Los Angeles Fire Disasters, Bella Rose Lomet
From the Kitchen to the Nation: Exploring the Tanzanian Identity Through Food, Rosina Makwabe
The Use of Compound Specific Amino Acid δ13C Analysis to Determine the Input of S. latissima and Bacteria in Sediments from a Microcosm Study, Evelyn Gates Marchand
The Wilderness Within US: Anxieties of Environmental Self-Control in Early and Nineteenth-Century American Ecogothic Literature, Evan Barclay McMahan
Spectroscopically measuring wind-induced Doppler shifts, Carson M. Moellering
The Long-distance Provincial Slave Trade during the Roman Principate, Tosca Neumann
Creation as a Means of Mindfulness, Resilience, and Belonging via Clay-Based Workshops with Adolescents from Immigrant and Refugee Backgrounds, Anya Catalina Passino
Population Genetics Study of Mytilus edulis in Maine, Amanda Power
The Verdict of the Vortex: Narrative Form as Judgment in Moby-Dick, Nick Raposo
Multiple Exposures to Criminal Suspects: What are Witnesses Thinking?, Sophie G. Rasol
Neuronal Regeneration Through Postnatal Subretinal Injection of Reelin in Mice, Katherine Rentzepis
Communicating the Unthinkable - Contextual and Generational Differences in Physician Disclosure of “Bad News”, Katherine May Rentzepis
From Wells to Walls: Engineering Optical Potentials with Blue-Detuned Light for Bose–Einstein Condensates, Paloma Rodriguez Thorne
¿Un Problema Únicamente Estadounidense?: Criminal Infrastructure and Structural Conditions in Drug-Related Outcomes Across Mexican Municipalities, Fatima Rojas Nuñez
Peripheral Perspectives: A Case Study of Plautus’ and Polybius’ response to the Punic Wars The construction of Carthaginian alterity as a mechanism for defining Roman imperial identity, Zoe Michaela Huan Schaedle
From Silk Roads to City Streets: Chinese Migration and the Making of Multicultural Singapore, Kate Schulze
The Limits of Recognition: Visibility, Violence, and the Making of May 1998 in Indonesia, Denzel Wicaksono Tan
The Four Roots of Resilience: How Early Childhood Outdoor Education Prepares Children For Climate Change, Amanda Brooke Yolles
Financially Contingent Self-Worth as a Moderator of the Relationship Between Social Class and Well-Being, Grace C, Yonchak
Paying the Price: How College Affordability Has Changed in the United States in the Last 15 Years, Suheyla Deniz Yucel
From the Ruhr to Santa Catarina: A 20th-Century Genealogical Case Study of Germans in Brazil, Luciana Zaiet
Exploring Racial Socialization, Belonging, and Self-Esteem Among Transracial Asian American Adoptees, Alden M. Zhang
How the Site of a Mass Shooting Became the Center of a Community: Exploring the Socio-Spatial Reconstruction of Just-In-Time Recreation in the Wake of the Lewiston, Maine, 2023 Shooting, Nathaniel D. Zuckerberg
Theses from 2025
To Be a ‘Good Farmer’ in a Fractured World: Wabanaki, White, and Somali Bantu Perspectives on Farming and Community in Maine, Aneeza Ariana Ahmad
A President or a Prince? Tracing the Development of Unitary Executive Theory, Isabel Beck
My Love is Like Eternity: A Process in Choreography and Immersive Performance, Lola Buczkowski
“No Cause In The World Is Foreign To Us”: An Analysis of the Bloque Nacionalista Galego’s Public-Facing Rhetoric, 2016–2024, Maple Buescher
Investigating Educational Outcomes for Providence Community Advocacy, Christian Cabello
Patterns Among Ulam Words, Hopper A. Clark
The Impact of Social Distance and Temporal Distance on Thinking About a Good Life, Siyu He
Royal Guards, The Mixi Sword, and Political Identities: Mongols as Co-Founders of the Ming Dynasty, Gongshi Huang
“Better a Witty Fool Than a Foolish Wit”: Feminist Wit in Shakespeare’s Comedies, Eva Rioux Hynes
Women for the Home, Children, and Resistance: Motherhood as a Political Strategy in Chile’s Anti-Allende and Anti-Pinochet Movements, Keira January
Situations of Habituation: Examining Habitual versus Goal-Directed Behaviors Under de Wit’s Slips of Action Task, Olivia R. Joaquin
Resorts and Republics: Freedom and Unfreedom in the Commonwealth Caribbean, Rashad A. King
Fabricating Purity: Muslim Transhumance, Colonization, and the Racial Politics of Spanish Shepherding, Maria G. McEvoy
Effects of synesthetic photisms on visual cognition: Investigating the temporal organization of grapheme-color synesthesia and object trimming in the visual processing pathway, Rosemary J. McKerley
Internal Geographies, Xanthe Miller
“The Object, The Virgin, The Holy Figure”, An Album and Musical Dissection of the Way in Which We Come to Be, Kenyon Walker Moore
The Visual Conversation and the Politics of Curiosity in Ann Radcliffe’s The Italian, Emma Sablan
Rhythmic Motor Execution Reduces Emotional Arousal, Alicia F. Sang
Executive Actions in the Obama, Trump, and Biden Presidencies: Constitutional and Political Implications, Sarah C. Senator
Valuing the Whole Self: Luck, Oppression, and Self-Respect, Elizabeth Skillings
The Absented Maternal: The Colonial Fetishization of the Racialized Maternal Body in Shakespeare, Mary Elizabeth Wray Tune
Using CSIA-AA of Paleo Cod Bone Collagen to Uncover Changes in Basal Nitrogen Sources and Trophic Position in the Gulf of Maine Over the Past 4,400 Years, Samantha L. Turtle
Galactic Winds in MaNGA and eBOSS: A Comprehensive Study of the Relationship Between Galaxies and their Outflows Over the Last Eight Billion Years, Brandon G. Villalta Lopez
Jujubes on the Margin: Trauma, Community, and Memories of a Village in Central Shanxi, Weihang Wang
Optical Frequency Comb Stabilization as an Optical Frequency Reference, Julia White
Connecting with Your Future Self: Behavioral Interventions on Decision Making, Youer Wu
Beyond the Headlines: Understanding the Consequences of Community Gun Violence on Lewiston’s School Community, Amanda Belle Zerbib
Theses from 2024
Fashion Forward: Digitizing Historical Dress in Theory and Practice, Grace K. Acton
Metaautobiography and Identity's Paradox: de Manian and Derridean Readings of Joyce and Svevo, Giancarlo Carlucci
A Paleoseismic Investigation of the Marquesado Fault in San Juan (27-33.5°S), Argentina, Drew Cochran, Shreya Arora, Jeremy Rimando, Gustavo F. Ortiz, Melina Villalobos, and Raul Gomez
Adaptation of Immunopanning Protocols: OmpF as an External Marker for Extraction of Regenerated Retinal Neurons, Madeline S. Ewell
Anarchism, Dreaming, and Technology as Cures to Sexual Violence in Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed and The Word for World is Forest, Anastasia Fowler
Embracing Diversity: Exploring the Multifaceted Experiences of Asian American students at PWIs, Molly E. Furman
The Effects of Post-Identification Feedback on Witness and Photospread Administrator Behavior, Abigail M. Harkness
Anti-Asian Racism, Model Minority Myth, and Their Psychological Impact on Asian Americans, Tamaki Hashiramoto
Carbon Dynamics Upstream and Downstream of a Tidal Restriction in Drakes Island Salt Marsh, Wells, Maine, Jamie W. Hollander
Probability Assignments Under Deep Uncertainty, Hexuan Huang
Medieval Illumination and Modern Manuscript Collections: The Journey of The Psalter-Hours of Isabelle de France, Isabelle Amy Job
The Makings of a Racial Vanguard : Black American Transnational Engagement 1848 – 1922, Sebastien Kleitman
Emancipatory or Merely Appropriate? Revealing the Right to Education under the Thirteenth Amendment and Its Implications for Students with Disabilities, Rachel Joyce Liazos
The Impact of Stable Modes on Saturation in Magnetorotational Turbulence, Hongke Lu
THE SELF AND THE NATION: NEW YOUTH AND EDUCATIONAL REVOLUTION IN CHINA, 1911 TO 1925, Zhengda(Chris) Lu
To Remember, To Forget: Political Actors’ Use of Collective Memory During Democratic Transitions in Spain and Chile, Caroline Thayer Milne
Running the Risk: Why Citizens Choose to Engage in Political Protest in 21st Century Russia, Grace Murphy
The Construction of Coloured Identities: Apartheid Nostalgia & The Politics of Memory, Helena May Raddock
Examining Intimate Partner Violence: The Erasure of Gendered Violence and Coercive Control, Leah C. Ruck
Tidal restriction affects carbon dynamics in the Jones Creek Salt Marsh, Scarborough, ME, USA, Anna E. Sarrazin
Beyond the Game: Assessing the IMPACT of a Collegiate Sports Mentorship Program on Psychosocial Development in Children With Disabilities and Serious Illnesses, Samantha Shapiro
Perceived Natural Scene Sizes Modulate The Effect of Clutter In Visual Search, Wentao Si
Organically Grown: The Sprouting Eco-Kashrut Movement, Miriam Phoebe Stern
Aldicarb sensitivity is altered in two strains with novel V-ATPase mutations in C. elegans., Natalie Elizabeth Young
Dynamic Bipartite Networks: Detecting and visualizing structural change, Yuhao Zhao
Synthesis and Biochemical Evaluation of Caffeoyl-Based Phenylpropanoid Glycosides, Edmund Squires Zuis
Theses from 2023
Futures Without Faces: The Relationship Between the Arts, National Museums, and State Interests in Postcolonial Morocco, Evan M. Antonakes