sociology princeton senior thesis

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The Special Collections reading rooms in Firestone and Mudd Libraries will be closed on the following upcoming holiday: September 2 (Labor Day). We are currently operating under Summer Hours which are 9am-4:15pm. During this time we stop paging at 3:45pm. Academic Hours, 9am-4:45pm, will resume on Monday, August 26. 

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Theses & Dissertations

• Master's Theses and Ph.D. Dissertations: Submission Guidelines
• Senior Thesis Submission Information for Students
• Senior Thesis Submission Information for Academic Departments

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The Princeton University Archives located within the Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library is the official repository for Undergraduate Senior Theses, Master's Theses and Ph.D. Dissertations. Princeton University undergraduate senior theses range from 1924 to the present. In the past, some senior theses were deposited at other libraries on campus. The following information is only for senior theses housed at Mudd Library. A search of a senior thesis in the Library catalog will provide you with information on where that particular senior thesis is housed. 

The following page includes all information for submission, searching & accessing copies of a Princeton University Undergraduate Senior Theses, Princeton University Ph.D. Dissertations or Master's Theses.

Searching for & Ordering a copy of a Princeton University Undergraduate Senior Theses

The Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library is the central repository for Princeton University undergraduate senior theses from 1924 to the present.

• Members of the University community with an active NetID can access digital theses in Dataspace when connected to any Princeton-networked computer (if you’re not on campus, please first connect to the campus network via the GlobalProtect or SonicWall desktop applications).
• Independent researchers who are not members of the University community (including Princeton alumni) should use DataSpace to browse senior theses. Please create a Special Collections Research Account prior to submitting the Senior Thesis Order Form. In some cases we will be unable to digitize the senior thesis due to an embargo that prohibits digital access. Copyright of the theses are held by the author.
• Senior Thesis Order Form

Searching for & Ordering a copy of a Princeton University Ph.D. Dissertation or Master's Theses

All researchers, prior to contacting Mudd Library, should search the following platforms for the dissertation they are in need of: 

For Princeton Ph.D. Dissertations from 2011 - present, please search and access via the Dataspace repository for Princeton University Doctoral Dissertations . These are accessible to everyone for free, regardless of Princeton University association.

To obtain Princeton Ph.D. Dissertations from 2010 and earlier, if you are associated with an institution that has a ProQuest Library Subscription, the dissertation may be available to download for free through the ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global search .

If a circulating copy is available via the Princeton University Catalog , those within the United States and Canada who have access to a local Interlibrary Loan service (ILL ) or Borrow Direct can request physical delivery through their library. 

If you are not associated with an institution with a ProQuest Library Subscription, you can purchase the dissertation through ProQuest Dissertation Express .

For Master’s Theses search the Princeton University Library Catalog and contact Mudd Library to discuss digitization of the original.

If the dissertation is unavailable in any of the above platforms, please contact Mudd Library to discuss digitization of the original. Mudd Library is only able to digitize those that are out of copyright or unavailable via ProQuest. In some cases we will be unable to digitize the dissertation due to an embargo placed by the student that prohibits digital access. If this is the case, the dissertation can only be viewed in the Mudd Library Reading Room after placing a request via the Princeton University Catalog . Copyright of the dissertations are held by the author.

University Archives

This blog includes text and images drawn from historical sources that may contain material that is offensive or harmful. We strive to accurately represent the past while being sensitive to the needs and concerns of our audience. If you have any feedback to share on this topic, please either comment on a relevant post, or use our Ask Us form to contact us .

How to Search for, Find, and View Princeton University Senior Theses

Update 2.12.16 : For current information on how to search for senior theses, please see the  Libguide: How to Search, Request to View, and Order Princeton University Senior Theses

The University Archives has launched an online archive of senior theses , and now there are new ways to search for, find, and view Princeton University senior theses.

Senior theses created between 1924 and 2012:

Theses created between 1924 and 2012 are in paper format or on microfiche, and can only be viewed in the Mudd Manuscript Library Reading Room.

To find and request a thesis from 1924 to 2012:

• Go to Books+ and enter the author’s name, title (or portion of the title)
• When search results appear, choose “Senior Thesis” under resource type (on the left side of the screen), which will limit your results only to senior theses

• Choose the thesis record by clicking on the title
• Go to the “Locations and Availability” tab, then click the blue button that says “Reading Room Request”
• You will be prompted to log in with your netid (PU students, faculty and staff) or to create an account as a non-Princeton University Patron
• Come to the Mudd Library to view the thesis during our hours of operation and let us know that you have a request in the system

Senior theses created in 2013:

All senior theses created in 2013 are in PDF format, but they are only viewable in full text at the computers in the reference room of the Mudd Library (i.e. “Walk-in Access”). You do not need to request 2013 theses prior to visiting the library. To see the listing for 2013 theses, visit the Senior Thesis Community page . Further DataSpace search tips follow.

Senior theses created in 2014 and in the future:

All 2014 and later senior theses are in PDF format, and most are accessible on any computer connected to the Princeton University network. A small number of theses are subject to temporary restrictions (embargo) or are restricted to computers in the reference room of the Mudd Library (i.e. “Walk-in Access”).

To search for 2013, 2014 (and future) theses, visit the Senior Thesis Community page in DataSpace.

Use the search box to enter the author’s name, the title, or keywords.

You can limit the search to a specific department by using the dropdown box labeled “In”.

To find a thesis written by a specific author:

Use the Browse button “Author” to see an alphabetical list of authors in the system.

Then click on a name to see an author’s thesis.

To find theses advised by a specific advisor:

The Browse button “Author” lists thesis authors as well as advisors in a combined listing. To find the name of an advisor, click on the Author button and scroll to the advisor’s name in the alphabetical listing, then click on the name to see the theses advised by this person. Please note, there may be multiple forms of name for each advisor, so check under each of the name entries for that individual (e.g. “Anthony Grafton,” “Anthony T. Grafton,” “Anthony Thomas Grafton”) to find all of the theses that this person advised.

If you have questions, please contact us at [email protected]

Lynn Durgin

2 responses to “How to Search for, Find, and View Princeton University Senior Theses”

[…] The Mudd Library houses both senior theses and Ph.D. dissertations written by Princeton University students. Both can be searched by using the Princeton University Library’s search service, Books+. To learn how to view or order a copy of a senior thesis, view our photoduplication process. For more on “How to Search for, Find, and View Princeton University Senior Theses,” see our previous… […]

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The Senior Thesis at 100: Back to the Future

Photo: Sameer A. Khan h’21

As Princeton marks the 100th anniversary of the senior thesis, what anchors one of the University’s most revered — and arguably, most daunting — traditions is the belief that each and every student can surprise themselves if given the chance. Patricia Fernández-Kelly, who has taught sociology at the University since 1997, is one member of this thought camp. Having advised upward of 80 theses, one of Princeton’s most prolific thesis advisers claims “that a senior thesis does fulfill an extraordinary purpose.” It allows students, she says, “to discover things that they never thought that they’d discover.”

Discovery comes in many forms. Most of the time, it is a personal affair, a point of growth. On the rare occasion, it might make headlines. In early 2023, Edward Tian ’23 was in the news after launching an AI-detecting application derived from his thesis-in-progress. GPTZero, a tool that discerns whether a text was produced by ChatGPT based on its “burstiness,” or the degree to which its language and sentence structures are unpredictable to machines, was viewed by a quarter of a million people within its first 20 days on the internet, according to Tian.

Tian, a B.S.E. graduate of Princeton’s computer science department, didn’t have to write a thesis. (The thesis is mandatory for all seniors except those pursuing B.S.E. degrees in computer science, mechanical and aerospace engineering, and operations research and financial engineering.) But his interest in writing and journalism pushed him to produce something public facing. “There’s a lot of worlds colliding where the work needs to be done,” says Tian, who had spent a year between his sophomore and junior years with the BBC using data tools to investigate misinformation. When he told his former professor John McPhee ’53 — whose sentences Tian fed into GPTZero to demonstrate how the tool worked — about what he had accomplished, McPhee’s exhortation was surely and unsurprisingly “bursty,” Tian recalls: “He said, ‘Go dazzle the cyberzone.’”

It’s exactly the kind of thing any undergraduate would want to hear as they launch themselves into the rest of their lives. Because the Princeton senior thesis is no mean feat — nor is it a static event. Eleven years ago, PAW published a retrospective of the tradition with testimonies from a range of alumni. But with the advent of AI technologies and the coronavirus pandemic, the decade since has already pushed the thesis beyond what it has historically been. And what it has been is a blueprint for a young person coming of age in their intellectual and creative journey; an example of the extraordinary things Princeton students can do, given the right support; and an exercise requiring focus, persistence, and a dash of good humor, virtues that feel more timeless now that a hundred years have passed.

A NEW TRADITION

In recent years, students have started taking photographs with their senior thesis in front of nassau hall. these alumni shared their photos with paw. .

1. Camden Olson ’19, “Service Dog Tales: A Tri-fold Study Investigating Diabetic Alert Dog Accuracy, the Use of Animal-Assisted Therapy to Address Executive Functioning Skills, and the Function of Calming Signals in Service Dog Puppies”; 2. Evan Saitta ’14, “Paleobiology of North American stegosaurs: Evidence for sexual dimorphism”; 3. Zhan Okuda-Lim ’15, “Early to Rise? The Influence of School Start Times on Adolescent Student Achievement in the Clark County School District, Nevada”; 4. Connor Pfeiffer ’18, “Britain and the ‘German Revolution’: The European System and British Foreign Policy During the Franco-Prussian War”; 5. Brandon McGhee ’18, “The Blacker the Berry: The Black Church, Linked Fate, Marginalization, and the Electability of Black Candidates”; 6. Jimin Kang ’21, “Tales from Indigenous Brazil: A Translation of Daniel Munduruku’s Chronicles of São Paulo & The Lessons I’ve Learned from the Portuguese”; 7. Victoria Pan ’21, “Are Lockdown Orders Driving Job Loss? Characterizing Labor Market Weakness During the COVID-19 Recession”; 8. Daniella Cohen ’22, “Inter-Subject Correlation Analysis Reveals Distinct Brain Network Configurations for Naturalistic Educational Stimuli”; 9. Juliana DaSilva ’23, “Investigating the role of Hh signaling during embryonic germ cell migration in Drosophila melanogaster”; 10. Devin Kilpatrick ’19, “Sojourners from Central America: A Study of Contemporary Migrants & Migration from Guatemala to the United States”; 11. Alice Xu ’20, “Pretty, and The Promises and Compromises of Happiness: Idealism, Realism, and Choice in Jane Austen’s Novels.” 

The idea for the senior thesis was born in the immediate aftermath of World War I when Luther Pfahler Eisenhart, an effervescent math professor who quickly rose through the ranks to become Princeton’s dean of the faculty, proposed slashing the traditional five courses in an undergraduate curriculum to four. The resultant free time would go toward independent study of the student’s choosing, a policy that, at most other schools, had only ever been reserved for those seeking honors. (To this day, the pattern holds: Though some seniors at other U.S. universities write theses, the task is optional for those hoping to graduate with extra laurels.)

With the pedagogical magnanimity that Eisenhart was known for, he fervently believed that grades achieved in the first two years of one’s time at Princeton “did not constitute a reliable test of a student’s ability to qualify for honors,” writes Alexander Leitch 1924 in A Princeton Companion . Rather, only when given the chance to “function freely” on their own would students prove their academic mettle. 

It is this sense of possibility that renders the thesis a subject of enduring fascination for generations of alumni. Testimonies of the thesis-writing experience abound, both online and elsewhere: in the archives of this very magazine; the dozens of reflections collected in Nancy Weiss Malkiel’s 2007 anthology The Thesis: Quintessentially Princeton ; on bookcases across campus but most notably in the Mudd Manuscript Library, where thousands of theses — especially those submitted prior to the digitization of theses in 2013 — are kept. 

Then there are the senior theses about the senior thesis. Most readers of this article will open the work of Melissa Gracey DeMontrond ’00 to find themselves in the dedication. “First and foremost,” it begins, “I would like to dedicate this thesis to every individual who has ever gone through the torturous and merciless process of writing a senior thesis at Princeton University. I know your pain.” A handful might even find themselves in DeMontrond’s photographs of seniors burrowed away in Firestone’s metal carrels, metallic 3-by-8 boxes that thesis writers used as a kind of office, or in the stories of “cubby hole parties” that took place among these carrels, which Kelly Ehrhart ’97 describes in her own thesis about the thesis. (The carrels were removed in 2012, except for three that have been preserved in Firestone Library. By the time I arrived at Princeton, one couldn’t hide behind a sliding door, but they could overhear other people’s conversations on the other side of the open-air carrels.) 

Both DeMontrond and Ehrhart were anthropology majors fascinated by the thesis as a rite of passage. How a student might enter Princeton as a child but emerge, after being shepherded through a series of challenges within a community of like-minded peers, a worldly adult. “The thesis process has altered my state in the world and made me aware of what is to come in the way of responsibility and behavior,” Ehrhart writes in her conclusion. “However much it is complained about and however despised it may be, the thesis is one of the most integral events that I will ever endure.”

It’s true: The thesis calls upon young people for an ingenuity that emerges from no source but themselves. Often, the results become astounding contributions to society. The list and lore of “famous theses” are well-known: John C. Bogle ’51 created Vanguard, one of the world’s largest providers of mutual funds, from his thesis; Wendy Kopp ’89, Teach for America, which has impacted more than 5 million students across the United States; Jonathan Safran Foer ’99, his first novel, Everything Is Illuminated , which was adapted into a 2005 film and launched his writing career. 

There are dozens of other examples besides. One of the lesser known is how Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi ’00 — whose 2023 biopic Nyad was nominated for two Oscars — launched her filmmaking career with a documentary she made in Kosovo to fulfill part of her thesis requirement in comparative literature.

Co-directed with Hugo Berkeley ’99, A Normal Life , which follows a group of five remarkable young people building their lives under the shadow of war, won best documentary at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2003. Fifteen years later, Vasarhelyi and her partner, Jimmy Chin, won an Oscar for their nail-biting documentary Free Solo , which follows professional climber Alex Honnold as he climbs a 3,000-foot-tall summit in California’s Yosemite Valley without any harnesses or ropes.

Vasarhelyi decided to major in comparative literature because of her fascination with “representing the unrepresentable,” she tells PAW. As the child of parents who emigrated from their respective countries due to religious and political persecution, she wanted to explore the tensions between people’s identities and their political contexts. Her project thus became not only her version of film school, but the culmination of four years spent pondering a question that she had really been asking all her life. “Finding the space academically to nurture this curiosity of mine was really meaningful,” she shares. “It defined my whole career. I’ve made films ever since.”

Importantly, most of Princeton’s star-studded theses are works-in-progress that later grow to become much more.

Vasarhelyi edited A Normal Life from her parents’ basement for another two years after graduation. Jordan Salama ’19, whose thesis was the first to become a University Pre-read for incoming freshmen, spent the pandemic rewriting what would become Every Day the River Changes , his nonfiction debut about the communities that live along Colombia’s Magdalena River. Ask him for the full story and you’ll learn that the real work took even longer than that. Salama, a Spanish and Portuguese concentrator, was first inspired to write about the river while pursuing an internship in Colombia after his freshman year. It took multiple returns and the encouragement of his adviser, Christina Lee *99, to create the final submission, which he presented at a fateful journalism colloquium where he was connected to an agent who sent a PDF of Salama’s thesis to some of the nation’s largest publishers.

But trace the story further back, and much like Vasarhelyi’s case, you’ll find that Salama’s story began long, long before he set foot in Old Nassau. Salama’s family is Argentine on his father’s side, and his great-grandfather — the main subject of his most recent book, Stranger in the Desert (2024) — emigrated there from Syria to work as a traveling salesman. Salama only became fluent in Spanish when he came to Princeton, where his experience was one of “opening [his] eyes to Latin America,” he says.  

These days, Salama looks back on his Princeton trajectory not only with wonder, but a great deal of humility. “Nobody’s an expert in anything when you’re a senior in college,” he says. And so, throughout the many conversations he shared with strangers and the funny encounters he had — my personal favorite: Salama unexpectedly hearing his rendition of Oasis’ “Wonderwall” played on the sound system in a bar in Puerto Boyacá — he “leaned into it.” 

At the end of the day, perhaps that’s what a thesis is: an impressive feat, yes, but also little more than an honest testament to who a young person is and a proof-of-concept for how they mean to go on.

Though all theses are pioneering in their own ways, some are more pioneering than others. Given the immense range of senior theses produced each year, it’s difficult for any single thesis to jump out — or earn a legendary status — as soon as it’s written. But ask any Princeton math major from the past decade about the most fabled thesis they know, and you’ll surely hear about Mason Soun ’15. Inspired by the work of math writer Danica McKellar, Soun wanted a way to explore the trials and tribulations of studying math while championing what inspires people, as he writes in his introduction, “to fall in love with this subject in the first place.”

Combining his passions for math education and creative writing, he went on to produce something exceptional: a thesis composed of comical short stories — featuring fictionalized versions of Justin Bieber, Kim Kardashian, and Kanye West — whose plots revolve around linear algebra and the experience of working with numbers. The first story, “To Beliebe,” follows an earnest and somewhat pitiable version of Bieber as he attempts to become a knife-seller with a company called Vector Marketing. 

In one archetypal scene, the Canadian superstar attempts to sell knives — which can be lengthened or fastened together, like vectors — to an old man surnamed Gomez, whose adamant refusal prompts the singer to respond, winking: “Never say never.”

“It was very much an outlier in the math department,” recalls his adviser Jennifer Johnson, who says she enjoyed working with Soun. “He was very serious about the idea of looking for ways to make math less frightening and to share his enthusiasm for mathematics with young students.” (Though it was an “interesting experiment,” she adds, she doesn’t think she “would want to try anything like this again.”)

Sometimes, it is not will but circumstance that calls for seniors to get inventive. Arguably, some of the most exceptional seniors in recent years — and I relinquish any bias — belong to the Class of 2021, who had to evacuate campus just as they were submitting proposals for their senior theses. 

Chris Gliwa ’21, a civil and environmental engineering graduate from East Rutherford, New Jersey, had anticipated research at a global scale. Instead, he found himself walking around his neighborhood amid a pandemic that had unexpectedly brought him home.

“It was during these walks that I became more perceptive of the industrial character of my neighborhood,” Gliwa says. In addition to exploring a nearby industrial complex that had once housed a bleachery during the American Civil War, he had socially distanced conversations with elderly neighbors who would share stories about the health problems that had proliferated in the area since the industrial boom in the 1960s. “They said that mysterious illnesses were common, but the companies and local leaders always assured them that there was nothing to worry about.”

Upon scouring a 1980s site assessment and decades-old news articles, Gliwa was compelled by a key culprit: benzene, a highly carcinogenic chemical used in industrial processes. With this discovery, a thesis was born. In the months that followed, Gliwa estimated airborne benzene concentrations using historical site data, then used wind records to build a model demonstrating how benzene would travel into the areas where his neighbors have lived for generations. Though his intention was “not to find conclusive evidence of wrongdoing,” Gliwa explains, his study’s confirmation of environmental pollution in East Rutherford was enough to vindicate his neighbors, whose response made Gliwa “very emotional.” 

“They are like family to me,” he reflects, three years on. “People from my community rarely go to schools like Princeton, so to exercise my education and research skills in this way was truly a once-in-a-generation opportunity.”

Though Gliwa chose not to publish his thesis due to the possibility of legal concerns, he continues to build upon the skills that made his project possible with a long view toward tangible policy change. These days, he is fulfilling his third year as part of the University’s Scholars in the Nation’s Service Initiative (SINSI). His first rotation was with a team working on climate and environmental issues at the White House.

Despite its reputational charge, the senior thesis isn’t immune to change. (Nor is it immune to critique: In the 1990s, a debate on its potential abolition made it to The New York Times .) As each generation of Princetonians paints new strokes on the hallowed portrait of this timeless tradition, the University has had to reframe the assignment. Creative theses — in which seniors produce novels, films, plays, and dance performances, among other things — are a fantastic case in point. Since Edward T. Cone ’39 submitted the first creative thesis in the form of a self-composed string quartet, hundreds of Princetonians have followed suit, giving rise to “hybrid” theses in which students (in certain majors such as English and comparative literature) fulfill their thesis requirement with a creative project supplemented by a critical essay. Online records of creative writing submissions since 1995 document a rising trend: Since 2013, there have been consistently more than 20 seniors each year submitting creative theses, while the preceding class years are patchier, with anywhere between one and 18 theses on record.

In the early 1950s, the University granted Robert V. Keeley ’51 *71 permission to become the first student to submit a novel as a senior thesis. Less than a decade later, there were six seniors writing novels to graduate.

Looking forward to the next 100 years, what might we expect of the senior thesis? Will it continue in the same way it has, or become an entirely different affair altogether? Perhaps the most salient question hovering over the thesis’s future concerns the rise of new technologies, including the widespread availability of digital data and AI. 

“I have the impression that students are increasingly looking at small topics as opposed to trying to engage large ideas,” says Fernández-Kelly, referring to the use of large databases for research data instead of the slow, sometimes painstaking work of studying systemic issues on the ground. “But that isn’t a problem with the senior thesis, but a problem with our culture.”

In response to the popularity of generative AI tools, deans Jill Dolan, Kate Stanton, and Cecily Swanson (the latter two co-chairs of the University’s working group on such technologies) issued a campuswide memo in August stating that policy on using AI in assignments would be up to the discretion of teaching staff. “We believe that the powers and risks of generative AI should only deepen the University’s commitment to a liberal arts education and the insistence on critical thinking it provides,” they wrote. 

Should faculty permit, the future Tian envisions might just as well become reality soon: one in which thesis writing is a combination of AI-assisted and human-derived work. But this isn’t something that keeps the GPTZero founder up at night. 

“Standards of student writing are derived from best practices in the real world,” he explains. “This is an exciting opportunity in the reverse: How students are writing theses or using AI tools responsibly will help define how people are using a combination of these technologies after they graduate.”

Not long from now, Jeremiah Giordani ’25 — who for one PAW article described himself as “one of the biggest ChatGPT users at Princeton” — will be brainstorming thesis ideas. The computer science concentrator, who laments the view that generative AI is for lazy students seeking easy ways out, considers the tool on par with calculators or spellcheck functions: time-saving technologies that give people the cognitive freedom to focus on creative tasks. 

“These technologies are here,” he says. “They’re very useful, and to become as skilled as possible, it’s necessary to learn how to use these tools as well as you can.” Though Giordani is not yet sure what he’ll research, he plans to find an adviser who has a liberal, and even encouraging, approach to using ChatGPT.

Regardless of who (or what) will do the writing, that’s one thing computers will never change: the very human relationships students build with their advisers. True, some pairings may hardly ever meet, and some seniors have admitted to avoiding their advisers altogether. But when a senior and their adviser click, history shows that the learning and guidance often go both ways. 

Malkiel’s 2007 collection The Thesis , which gathers interviews with Class of 2006 seniors and their advisers on the thesis research process, includes the story of ORFE concentrator Lindsey (Cant) Azzaretti ’06, who, for her thesis, came up with the idea of applying modeling techniques to the optimization of human blood storage. Her adviser, Warren B. Powell ’77 — who had advised upward of 200 undergraduate theses before his retirement in 2020 — was inspired. “The problem is now featured in a book I am writing on approximate dynamic programming, and I have already used it in a tutorial I have given on the topic,” his section in the anthology reads. “All this for a problem that would never have occurred to me.” 

“This is an exciting opportunity in the reverse: How students are writing theses or using AI tools responsibly will help define how people are using a combination of these technologies after they graduate.” — Edward Tian ’23 on using AI in students’ work, especially theses

Lee, Salama’s thesis adviser, says she believes the advising experience has influenced her own approaches to scholarship. Published in 2021, her most recent monograph — which explores the life of saints and their believers in the Spanish Philippines — features a foreword in which Lee explains how her identity as a Korean Argentinian compels her to study the intersection of Asian and Hispanic worlds. “I realized that you can write a good, strong piece of academic work that has personal resonance,” says Lee, whose work with Salama and other students has often concerned the incorporation of the first-person voice. “I’m not sure I would’ve done this if I hadn’t directed a thesis,” she adds.

To summarize the sheer diversity of theses from the past century — and to predict what they will look like in the next — is to partake in the same quixotic fervor of Eisenhart’s original vision. But for each student who has cried in a carrel is one who has laid a cornerstone for an illustrious career, or, at the most basic level, realized that they had it in themselves to do something incredible, and in their early 20s, no less. How big the world seems after such an accomplishment, and the rest of life so doable — or perhaps it is simply the comic relief of shared suffering that buoys us along. That much hasn’t changed; when members of the Class of 1925 designed their Reunions beer jacket, they included a tiger being crushed under four massive tomes. And what about the Class of 1924, the last batch to escape the mandatory thesis? 

Their beer jacket featured a horseshoe. They couldn’t believe their luck. But whether that was a prescient choice, I’ll leave to the reader to decide. 

Jimin Kang ’21 is a freelance writer and recent Sachs scholar based in Oxford, England.

What Readers Are Saying

Compliments for paw’s coverage and cover art, the value of the thesis, realized in retrospect, remembering the carrels, thesis memories and a missed opportunity, the role of professors in shaping the senior theses, on the thesis, and later lessons, adding berg ’71 to the list of thesis notables, theses that live on, beyond mudd library, getting creative, on a deadline, thesis trauma and a recurring nightmare, inspiring examples of senior theses.

The Senior Thesis

From the outset of their time at Princeton, students are encouraged and challenged to develop their scholarly interests and to evolve as independent thinkers.

The culmination of this process is the senior thesis, which provides a unique opportunity for students to pursue original research and scholarship in a field of their choosing. At Princeton, every senior writes a thesis or, in the case of some engineering departments, undertakes a substantial independent project.

Integral to the senior thesis process is the opportunity to work one-on-one with a faculty member who guides the development of the project. Thesis writers and advisers agree that the most valuable outcome of the senior thesis is the chance for students to enhance skills that are the foundation of future success, including creativity, intellectual engagement, mental discipline and the ability to meet new challenges.

Many students develop projects from ideas sparked in the classes they’ve taken; others fashion their topics on the basis of long-standing personal passions. Most thesis writers encounter the intellectual twists and turns of any good research project, where the questions emerge as they proceed, often taking them in unexpected directions.

Planning for the senior thesis starts in earnest in the junior year, when students complete a significant research project known as the junior paper. Students who plan ahead can make good use of the University's considerable resources, such as receiving University funds to do research in the United States or abroad. Other students use summer internships as a launching pad for their thesis. For some science and engineering projects, students stay on campus the summer before their senior year to get a head start on lab work.

Writing a thesis encourages the self-confidence and high ambitions that come from mastering a difficult challenge. It fosters the development of specific skills and habits of mind that augur well for future success. No wonder generations of graduates look back on the senior thesis as the most valuable academic component of their Princeton experience.

Navigating Colombia’s Magdalena River, One Story At A Time

For his senior thesis, Jordan Salama, a Spanish and Portuguese major, produced a nonfiction book of travel writing about the people and places along Colombia’s main river, the Magdalena.

Embracing the Classics to Inform Policymaking for Public Education

For her senior thesis, Emma Treadwayconsiders how the basic tenets of Stoicism — a school of philosophy that dates from 300 BCE — can teach students to engage empathetically with the world and address inequities in the classroom.

Creating A Faster, Cheaper and Greener Chemical Reaction

One way to make drugs more affordable is to make them cheaper to produce. For her senior thesis research, Cassidy Humphreys, a chemistry major with a passion for medicine, took on the challenge of taking a century-old formula at the core of many modern medications — and improving it.

The Humanity of Improvisational Dance

Esin Yunusoglu investigated how humans move together and exist in a space — both on the dance floor and in real life — for the choreography she created as her senior thesis in dance, advised by Professor of Dance Susan Marshall.

From the Blog

The infamous senior thesis, revisiting wwii: my senior thesis, independent work in its full glory, advisers, independent work and beyond.

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Department faculty do research and teaching on important topics of concern in the "real world," from social networks, immigration and inequality to globalization, politics and economic sociology.

Goals for Student Learning

Sociology is the systematic study of human action, from face-to-face interaction to organizational behavior to that of nation-states. It is the most methodologically inclusive of the social sciences and incorporates qualitative, quantitative, experimental, historical and machine learning within its research toolkit. Despite its diverse subject matter and methods, the sociology major has been designed to provide a coherent intellectual experience that is both rigorous and responsive to a range of academic and career interests. Our student learning goals are fivefold:

• Students will come to understand the ways in which the lives of individuals and social groups are affected by social context and will demonstrate an ability to explain or interpret social phenomena via reference to core sociological concepts (e.g., culture, social structure, agency, socialization, norms, roles or social institutions). 
• Students will be able to describe and compare major concepts and theories developed by classical and contemporary social theorists and use them to analyze social phenomena.
• Students will gain mastery of applied statistics including simple description, the logic of statistical inference, hypothesis testing and methods for addressing research questions of conceptual and practical interest to social scientists. Relatedly, students will learn to critically evaluate the quality of statistical evidence produced by social scientists as featured in research articles, media accounts or reports written for audiences of policymakers and educated generalists (i.e., those who are not professional researchers).
•  Students will demonstrate the ability to construct a research project designed to answer a sociological question of interest. Students will demonstrate ability to (a) move from theory and concepts to strategies of measurement; (b) attend to validity and reliability; (c) assess the appropriateness of different data types (e.g., experimental, survey, interview, ethnographic); (d) incorporate research methods frequently used by social scientists; (e) propose an appropriate research design for testing theory-based hypotheses, or interpreting and exploring social phenomena; and (f) apply the logic of causal inference (including acknowledging when such inference is unjustified).
• Students will complete said research projects for their junior independent work and later their senior thesis. These works will incorporate knowledge they have gained from coursework on sociological theory, statistics, research design and methods, and substantive areas of the discipline. Students will identify interesting research questions and/or theory-based hypotheses, utilize appropriate data collection and analysis methods, interpret empirical patterns, write research reports and make effective presentations.

Prerequisites

Students are normally encouraged to complete one or more courses in sociology by the end of sophomore year. Sociology 101 is highly recommended, though some majors take it after they have enrolled in the department.

Program of Study

Students are required to take a minimum of nine courses in sociology, including an upper limit of two cognate courses in other departments which must receive approval from sociology in order to count toward the required nine. A "cognate" course is a Princeton class offered by another department that has substantial sociological content. All departmental courses or approved cognates that count toward the required nine must be taken for a grade and cannot be taken pass/D/fail. SOC 101, SOC 300, SOC 301, and SOC 302 are requirements for the major. Collectively they are designed to help students carry out their junior and senior independent work. These courses expose students to the nature of sociological problems and theory, the logic of inquiry, the techniques of empirical investigation and the elements of statistics. SOC 300 and SOC 301 are usually taken in the fall of junior year and are offered at that time to facilitate students who wish to study abroad in the spring. SOC 302 is normally offered in the spring.

Independent Work

Junior Independent Work . Juniors begin their independent work in the fall of their junior year, but the work is due near the end of the spring semester.

The junior paper is written with SOC 300 and SOC 301 providing the basic research tools to formulate the project. Junior papers require students to conduct limited data analysis, whether of primary data (generated by students themselves) or secondary data (derived from existing data sources). In some cases, the junior paper becomes the foundation for the student's senior thesis. All junior papers are graded by a second reader, in addition to the major adviser.

Senior Independent Work . Senior independent work consists of completing a thesis that (a) explores the various theoretical approaches that have been used to explain a particular social phenomenon and (b) examines that phenomenon through extensive analysis of data, whether primary (generated by students themselves) or secondary (derived from existing data sources). Students whose thesis topics require advanced quantitative skills may acquire the necessary competence by enrolling in suitable statistics courses.

Students who are contemplating collecting their own data (for either the junior paper or senior thesis) will need the prior approval of the University's Institutional Review Board for Human Subjects.

Senior Departmental Examination

Each senior takes an oral examination based on the senior thesis and the broader subfield to which it contributes. A departmental committee conducts this examination in May.

Study Abroad

Sociology welcomes students with international interests who wish to study abroad for one or two semesters. The department makes every effort to accommodate these students by coordinating special arrangements for advising on independent work and by permitting them to take required courses out of sequence, either before or after the period of study overseas. Normally, two courses taken during a semester or a year abroad count as departmentals. Such courses will need preapproval from the director of undergraduate studies.

Undergraduate Departmental Committee . At the beginning of every year, an Undergraduate Student Advisory Committee is selected. This committee, consisting of equal numbers of junior and senior majors, advises the department on matters pertaining to curriculum, staffing and requirements.

Research Facilities . The Social Science Reference Center, the Data and Statistical Services unit and the Stokes Library provide facilities for study and research in the form of collections of books, journal articles, reports, microfilm and electronic data. Staff members in these units are available to majors who are completing their independent work, looking for appropriate data sets to analyze, or seeking advice on where to find literature relevant to their research topics.

• Mitchell Duneier

Director of Undergraduate Studies

• Timothy J. Nelson

Director of Graduate Studies

• Adam M. Goldstein
• Miguel A. Centeno
• Dalton Conley
• Matthew Desmond
• Kathryn J. Edin
• Patricia Fernández-Kelly
• Filiz Garip
• Tod G. Hamilton
• Jennifer L. Jennings
• Shamus R. Khan
• Sara McLanahan
• Sanyu A. Mojola
• James M. Raymo
• Matthew J. Salganik
• Kim Lane Scheppele
• Patrick T. Sharkey
• Paul E. Starr
• Zeynep Tufekci
• Frederick F Wherry
• Viviana A. Zelizer

Associate Professor

• Elizabeth M. Armstrong
• Brandon M. Stewart
• Janet A. Vertesi

Assistant Professor

• Benjamin H. Bradlow
• John N. Robinson
• Kristopher Velasco

Associated Faculty

• Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi, Near Eastern Studies
• Tessa J. Desmond

Visiting Professor

• Craig Calhoun
• Lynn Chancer

Visiting Lecturer with Rank of Professor

• Alondra Nelson

For a full list of faculty members and fellows please visit the department or program website.

SOC 101 - Introduction to Sociology Fall SA

Soc 201 - american society and politics (also spi 339) not offered this year sa, soc 203 - introduction to urban studies (also arc 207/spi 201/urb 201) spring sa, soc 210 - urban sociology: the city and social change in the americas (also lao 210/las 210/urb 210) fall sa, soc 211 - sociology of religion spring sa, soc 214 - creativity, innovation, and society not offered this year sa, soc 221 - inequality: class, race, and gender (also aas 221/gss 221) not offered this year sa, soc 222 - the sociology of crime and punishment sa, soc 225 - sex, sexuality, and gender (also gss 225) not offered this year sa, soc 227 - race and ethnicity (also urb 227) sa, soc 240 - families not offered this year sa, soc 248 - modern mexican society (also las 248) not offered this year sa, soc 250 - the western way of war spring ha, soc 300 - claims and evidence in sociology fall sa, soc 301 - statistical methods in sociology fall qcr, soc 302 - sociological theory (also chv 302) spring sa, soc 305 - introduction to quantitative social science (also pol 345/spi 211) fall qcr, soc 308 - communism and beyond: china and russia (also eas 308/res 308) spring sa, soc 309 - topics in the sociology of latin america (also las 309) not offered this year sa, soc 310 - gender and development in the americas (also gss 312/las 310) not offered this year sa, soc 312 - race and public policy (also aas 317/pol 343/spi 331) fall sa, soc 319 - media and public policy (also spi 334) spring sa, soc 325 - latino politics in the u.s. (also lao 333/las 333/pol 333) not offered this year sa, soc 328 - population, society and public policy (also spi 330) not offered this year sa, soc 330 - ethnographic methods for senior thesis research not offered this year sa, soc 338 - the sociology of latinos in the u.s. (also las 338) not offered this year sa, soc 340 - god of many faces: comparative perspectives on migration and religion (also rel 390) not offered this year sa, soc 341 - latinos in american life and culture (also lao 200/las 336) not offered this year sa, soc 342 - organizations: management, bureaucracy, and work not offered this year sa, soc 344 - communications, culture, and society not offered this year sa, soc 345 - money, work, and social life not offered this year sa, soc 353 - information technology and public policy (also cos 351/spi 351) not offered this year sa, soc 361 - culture, power, and inequality (also gss 361) not offered this year sa, soc 363 - religion in the united states not offered this year sa, soc 364 - sociology of medicine (also chv 364) not offered this year sa, soc 365 - health, society, and politics not offered this year sa, soc 368 - special topics in sociology not offered this year cdsa, soc 400 - applied social statistics fall qcr, soc 481 - special topics in institutions and networks (also spi 481/urb 481) not offered this year sa.

Dissertations/Theses

Department of Sociology

Watch CBS News

Princeton Releases Michelle Obama's Senior Thesis

February 26, 2008 / 8:18 PM EST / UWIRE.com

This story was written by Esther Breger, The Daily Princetonian

The campaign of Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), her husband, received criticism from conservative media and bloggers when the University restricted access to her senior thesis until after the presidential election in November.

"A thesis can be restricted or unrestricted for a variety of reasons, including at the request of alumni," University spokeswoman Cass Cliatt '96 said in an e-mail. "It falls within the purview of alumni to discuss their academic work," she said.

Analysis of the thesis' content, in addition to its restricted availability, has featured prominently in blogs over the last few days. Written under Obama's maiden name of Michelle LaVaughn Robinson and titled "Princeton-Educated Blacks and the Black Community," the thesis has come under scrutiny as the presidential campaign has advanced for its analysis of race relations.

What's in the thesis?

Obama, who concentrated in sociology and received a certificate in African-American studies, examined how the attitudes of black alumni have changed over the course of their time at the University. "Will they become more or less motivated to benefit the Black community?" Obama wrote in her thesis.

After surveying 89 black graduates, Obama concluded that attending the University as an undergraduate decreased the extent to which black alumni identified with the black community as a whole.

Obama drew on her personal experiences as an example.

"As I enter my final year at Princeton, I find myself striving for many of the same goals as my White classmates -- acceptance to a prestigious graduate school or a high-paying position in a successful corporation," she wrote, citing the University's conservative values as a likely cause.

"Predominately White universities like Princeton are socially and academically designed to cater to the needs of the White students comprising the bulk of their enrollments," she said, noting the small size of the African-American studies department and that there were only five black tenured professors at the University across all departments.

Obama studied the attitudes of black Princeton alumni to determine what effect their time at Princeton had on their identification with the black community. "My experiences at Princeton have made me far more aware of my 'Blackness' than ever before," she wrote in her introduction. "I have found that at Princeton no matter how liberal and open-minded some of my White professors and classmates try to be toward me, I sometimes feel like a visitor on campus; as if I really don't belong."

Emeritus sociology professor Walter Wallace, who served as her thesis adviser, declined to comment for this story.

"It is important to consider the time period in which Michelle Obama wrote her thesis," College Democrats vice president Scott Weingart '09 said in an e-mail. "In 1985, Princeton was still a very conservative school; [Tiger Inn] would not admit women members for another six years. Today, the student body is a lot more progressive and diverse."

Completed theses are kept in Mudd Manuscript Library and are generally available to the public for viewing and scanning. Before today, callers to Mudd requesting information on Obama's thesis were told that the thesis has been made "temporarily unavailable" and were directed to the University Office of Communications. Following the thesis' release by the Obama campaign to politico.com, a political news site, the University lifted the restriction.

The University's actions were met with varying reactions by students.

"The school shoud generally default to freedom of information unless there is some compelling school or personal (e.g. the request of the author) interest at stake," Jason Anton '10, co-director of the Students for Barack Obama Princeton chapter, said in an e-mail.

"There's nothing about a senior thesis that's private in nature -- it's written with the knowledge that it will be kept in Mudd for all to read," Zahava Stadler '11 said.

Many students felt that the contents of the work could become a factor in the election, but they were unsure to what extent it would affect the outcome.

"Unfortunately, the thesis may very well revive the race card as a central theme of the election," Anton said.

"Her thesis seems especially pertinent given the questions that have been raised off and on about the supposed 'tight-rope' of racial identity politics that some claim Senator Obama has to carefully navigate," College Democrats president Rob Weiss '09 said in an e-mail.

Molly Alarcon '10, an Obama supporter, said she thought Michelle Obama's writing in college should not have any bearing on her husband's election, but her view was not shared by all students.

More from CBS News

Princeton Correspondents on Undergraduate Research

Looking at Qualitative Research through Junior Papers: An Interview with Albert Lee ‘24

Albert Lee ‘24 is the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Chair at Colonial Club, a member of the Students for Prison Education, Abolition, and Reform (SPEAR), and former Senior Writer for The Daily Princetonian.

As a junior, a hot topic for many of my friends lately has been their junior research and senior theses. In brainstorming ideas for this piece, I also thought about the incredible amount of learning that takes place in just a semester. That’s when I got the idea for this paper—to hear from seniors about their recent experiences conducting research for their Junior Papers. So, I reached out to Albert Lee ‘24, a senior majoring in Sociology and pursuing a certificate in Journalism.

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Amanda Blanco ’18: Reflections on Independent Research

Amanda Blanco is a senior in the Sociology Department. Having taken several journalism courses and being an avid news reader, she was inspired by current events to write a thesis pertaining to the effects of today’s political climate on college campuses. Amanda recently finished her thesis and is in the midst of preparing for her defense. This process of reviewing her research in order to share it with a larger audience has led her to reflect on what the senior thesis experience has been like and what she has learned from the process. Luckily, Amanda had time in her busy schedule to share some of her end-of-year reflections:

Continue reading Amanda Blanco ’18: Reflections on Independent Research

Graduate Student Reflections: An Interview with Hadiya Jones

This semester, in our spring series, PCURs will interview a graduate student from their home department who either is currently a graduate student at Princeton, or attended Princeton as an undergraduate. In Graduate Student Reflections: Life in Academia, interviews with graduate students shed light on the variety of paths one can take to get to graduate school and beyond, and the many insights gained along the way from research projects and mentors. Here, Taylor shares her interview with Hadiya Jones.

What’s your research about?

As a black woman raised in a predominantly white middle-class suburb, I am intrigued, both personally and scholarly, by the diverse manifestations created by the intersection of race, gender, and class. I ultimately desire to study how black middle-class millennials, who are socialized in predominantly white spaces, navigate their identities, and I am particularly fascinated by how this process happens on the web.

Continue reading Graduate Student Reflections: An Interview with Hadiya Jones

Looking Back on Undergraduate Research: A Conversation with Teri Tillman ’16

In a continuation of last year’s seasonal series, this winter, each PCUR will interview a Princeton alumnus from their home department about his/her experience writing a senior thesis. In Looking Back on Undergraduate Research: Alumni Perspectives , the alumni reveal how conducting independent research at Princeton influenced them academically, professionally and personally. Here, Taylor shares her interview.

Teri Tillman graduated in 2016 with a degree in Sociology and a certificate in American Studies. Now in her second year at Cornell Law School, she’s the academic chair for Cornell’s Black Law Students Association, the co-president for Cornell’s Sports & Entertainment Law Society, as well as a student associate in Cornell’s Labor Law Clinic. During her time at Princeton, her thesis helped her develop the confidence to conquer any large assignment, and this determination has carried over into her graduate work. Here’s what she had to say about her experience with independent work:

Continue reading Looking Back on Undergraduate Research: A Conversation with Teri Tillman ’16

Productivity Apps: Which Ones Can Help You Through the Rest of the Semester

With the end of the semester and summer around the corner, it is hard to keep track of work when all you want to do is spend time outside. That said, there are still ways of staying on top of your daily tasks while keeping your plans to lounge in the grass. As opposed to giving tips on how to make your work sessions as efficient as possible , this week, I’d like to recommend a few apps to help manage your work.

Continue reading Productivity Apps: Which Ones Can Help You Through the Rest of the Semester

Effective Study Habits for Independent Work

April has finally arrived, which means that the deadlines for theses and junior papers are quickly approaching (cue the dramatic music)! While teachers and advisers may be reminding you to pace yourselves and to still find time to relax, this post is for those who are grinding through their work and may even be (dare I say it) binge writing. Whether you fall into this category or not, brushing up on some effective work habits can be helpful in all parts of academic life. With that said, here are a few strategies that I have found make my writing sessions as efficient as possible: Continue reading Effective Study Habits for Independent Work

Self-Management: Strategies for Staying On Top of Your Independent Work

It’s halfway through the semester now and the deadline for junior papers and theses is quickly approaching. Since we’ve just had midterms and are now facing another six weeks of hard work, it’s no wonder campus-wide motivation is at an all-time low. You may even be starting to fall behind on your independent work (like me!). But if you’re worried about how to keep holding yourself accountable, there’s still hope! Out of the several options available, I’ve come up with three simple steps for a quick solution. Here’s how taking 20-30 minutes today will help set you up for the rest of your independent project this spring:

Continue reading Self-Management: Strategies for Staying On Top of Your Independent Work

Mount Illusion: Finding My Research Question…While Doing Research

Since the day I learned how to write a research paper, I always assumed I needed to use the same research question throughout my project. To me, the question seemed to be the metaphorical guiding light in the darkness of independent work, the go-to reference for determining what information is relevant or what can be put aside. It wasn’t until I started conducting my own study that I realized my initial assumption was wrong. It turned out that the more I learned about my topic, the more I learned about what I actually wanted to figure out. In hindsight, I now see that my search for a research question followed the path of Mount Stupid, or as I’ve renamed it, Mount Illusion.

For those who are unfamiliar with this comic, Mount Stupid is a graphic that originally appeared on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal.  The comic is an illustration of a chart in which the x axis measures one’s knowledge of a topic and the y axis measures one’s willingness  to give his or her opinion on it. The small hump in the middle of the graph is called Mount Stupid, otherwise known as the place where people who think they know a lot about a topic are actually not that knowledgeable on the subject. 

In my case, I’ve repurposed Mount  Stupid so that the y axis measures how close I was to finding my research question and the hump, Mount Illusion, measures when I believed I finally found it (needless to say, I was wrong). As the illustration above shows, I didn’t actually find my question until I was well into the research process. Here’s how I finally figured it out:

Continue reading Mount Illusion: Finding My Research Question…While Doing Research

Recycling Content: How to Expand Your Fall Semester JP for the Spring

One of the most rewarding parts of conducting independent research is finishing it. After spending several months finding a topic, looking for a research question , keeping track of sources , and writing up a semester’s worth of work, you can’t help but be proud (or simply relieved) to finally turn in your Junior Paper. That being said, there is a downside to completing your first independent project: having to start over. If you’re like me, you’re required to write another JP for the spring semester. And perhaps, also like me, you dread having to let go of your previous hard work and starting from scratch. Well, maybe you don’t have to!

The beauty of research is that there is no limit to how many times and ways you can study the same material. More importantly, building upon pre-existing work can help you better understand your topic and plan for future studies. This could entail conducting new research that tries to eliminate limitations from the original study or research that compares the results of the original study with the those of a new one. For that reason, with departmental permission, your spring semester JP could be an extension of your fall semester research! Here are three ways you could expand your old research: Continue reading Recycling Content: How to Expand Your Fall Semester JP for the Spring

Looking Back on Undergraduate Research: Dumpster Diving with Alex V. Barnard ’09

This semester, each PCUR will interview a Princeton alumnus from their home department about his/her experience writing a senior thesis. In Looking Back on Undergraduate Research: Alumni Perspectives , the alumni reveal how conducting independent research at Princeton influenced them academically, professionally and personally. Here, Taylor shares her interview.

Alex V. Barnard ‘09 was a Sociology Major during his time at Princeton. Now a graduate student in Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley, he studies the comparative politics of mental health in Europe and the U.S. In addition to attending graduate school, Alex continued to work on his thesis after completing his undergraduate education. He recently published all of his hard work in his new book, Freegans: Diving into the Wealth of Food Waste in America .What is a “freegan,” you may ask? Luckily, I had the opportunity to speak with the author himself. Here’s what Alex had to say in his interview with PCUR about how his thesis impacted his life:  

Continue reading Looking Back on Undergraduate Research: Dumpster Diving with Alex V. Barnard ’09

• Princeton University Undergraduate Senior Theses, 1924-2024
• Art and Archaeology, 1926-2024

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Office of Population Research

For Undergraduates

There are several ways to get involved with the Office of Population Research. Explore the opportunities below and learn more about the interdisciplinary work that goes on in the department.

Take Population Courses

Although there are no official POP courses for undergraduates, there are several population courses offered in related fields like sociology, economics, and public policy that are taught by OPR-affiliated faculty. Examples of courses like this are:

SPI 330 / SOC 328 - Population, Society, and Public Policy

GHP 351 / SPI 381 / EEB 351 / POP 351 - Epidemiology: An Ecological and Evolutionary Perspective

SOC 329/LAO 329 - Immigrant America 

GSS 420 / SOC 420 / GHP 420 - Born in the USA: Culture and Reproduction in Modern America 

SPI 331 / SOC 312 / AAS 317 -  Race and Public Policy

SOC 366 - Social Determinants of Health 

Beyond content knowledge, taking classes in statistics, coding and computer science, and advanced math like linear algebra and multivariable calculus are encouraged.

Consider taking the following graduate seminar sequences as a senior:

POP 501 - Survey of Population Problems

POP 502 - Research Methods in Demography

Get Involved in Research

There are several OPR projects and center affiliates that undergraduates can look into for research projects. There are also research opportunities with specific faculty. Undergraduate students are welcome to attend the weekly Notestein Seminars to learn about population research. 

Undergraduates can also do their Junior Papers and Senior Theses on a population-related issue. There might even be a chance to attend or present at the Population Association of America conference.

You are also welcome to attend research and coding workshops hosted by OPR, including the The Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Summer Data Workshop.

Consider Graduate Programs in Population Studies and Demography

If you are looking for ways to continue your population and demographic knowledge, consider furthering your education at a graduate program.

Some programs for PhDs in Population Studies and Demography in the United States Include:

Princeton University 

UC Berkeley

University of Pennsylvania

Other graduate programs have population centers where doctoral students are involved. Some examples include:

Cornell Population Center

CU-Boulder Population Center

Duke Population Research Center

Minnesota Population Center

Michigan Population Center

Pennsylvania State University Joint Demography Program

UNC-Chapel Hill Pop Center

Georgetown University

University of Texas, Austin

University of Washington

Brown University

Florida State University

Ohio State University

See Population Research in Action

Population and demographic research cross-cuts with many of the important issues of our time. Work at OPR tackles global health, child development and family formation, migration as well as public policy issues like immigration, eviction, education, poverty, and much more. 

Program in Latin American Studies

Senior Thesis Title Archive

Class of 2023.

Students may write a senior thesis, an independent research paper ( * ), or take an additional LAS course to fulfill the final requirement for the certificate.

Hilcia Acevedo , Anthropology Transnational Dreamscapes: The Dance Between a Multi-Dimensional Love, Embodiment, and Preservation in the Afterlives of Migration Sofia Alvarado , School of Public and International Affairs From Crisis to Opportunity: A New Vision for U.S. Migration Policies towards Venezuelan Migrants Ana Blanco , School of Public and International Affairs ENG 358 / LAS 385 / AMS 396 / AAS 343 Caribbean Literature and Culture: Island Imaginaries: Movement, Speculation and Precarity Kaelani Burja , Anthropology ¡La Gran Cumbia Espectacular!* Lawrence Chen , Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Spatiotemporal Comparisons of Panamanian P. volitans Diet and Parasitism: Continued Enemy Release and Implications Rene Cruz , History SPA 350 / LAS 349 Topics in Latin American Cultural Studies: Latin American Imaginaries of Extraction: Rubber, Bananas, and Other Gisell Curbelo , School of Public and International Affairs The End of Cuban Exceptionalism: A Post Wet-Foot/Dry-Foot Analysis of Cuban Migration Hannah Faughnan , Ecology and Evolutionary Biology ¡La Gran Cumbia Espectacular!* Rodrigo Fernandez , Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering SPA 335 / LAS 397 / GSS 354 Mexico's Tenth Muse: Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Alex Giannattasio , School of Public and International Affairs It Isn’t Easy Being Green: Assessing Accelerators and Bottlenecks to Green Hydrogen Development in the Context of Chile’s National Green Hydrogen Strategy Isamar Gonzalez , School of Public and International Affairs SPA 350/ LAS 349: Topics in Latin American Cultural Studies: Latin American Imaginaries of Extraction: Rubber, Bananas, and Other Sarah Grinalds , School of Public and International Affairs The Photography of Paz Errázuriz: an Activism of Emphasizing Margins* Emma Harlan , History "What is Going on in Cuba?": African American Connections and Reflections on Cuba, 1930 to 1942 Londy Hernandez , Spanish and Portuguese Ver demonios es un don:  A Look at (Swimming, Horseback-Riding, Retching) Guatemalan Demons Anna Hiltner , Sociology Immigrant Perspectives of Environmental Hazards in Newark's Ironbound* Axidi Iglesias , School of Public and International Affairs Remain in México… Indefinitely? U.S. Border Externalization Policies to México & the Northern Triangle: A Growing Humanitarian Crisis for Migrants & Government and Non-governmental Organizations Gawon Jo , Comparative Literature “Piecing together a skeleton”:  Alternative Frameworks and Re-imaginings Confronting Feminicide Jessica Lee , History GHP 350 / SPI 380 / ANT 380 Critical Perspectives in Global Health Caitlin Limestahl , Anthropology LAS 234 / ANT 333 Rethinking the Northern Triangle: Violence, Intervention, and Resistance in Central America Coley Martin , Civil and Environmental Engineering On Sunken Land: The Environmental and Social Impacts of the Itaipu Hydroelectric Dam in Brazil Cody Mui , Molecular Biology LIN 360 Linguistic Universals and Language Diversity Jose Ortiz , Spanish and Portuguese Challenges Faced by Socioeconomically Disadvantaged Type 2 Diabetes and Hypertension Patients in Monterrey, Nuevo León (México): A Qualitative Study from the Healthcare Provider Perspective Joann Perez , Anthropology The Human Cost of Healthcare Inequity: An Anthropological Study of Healthcare Access and Structural Violence Faced by Peruvian Immigrants Karla Perez - Gazca , Ecology and Evolutionary Biology GHP 351 / SPI 381 / EEB 351 Epidemiology: An Ecological and Evolutionary Perspective Rooya Rahin , Politics JRN 449 / LAS 439 International News: Covering Conflict, Human Rights and Displacement Beyond the Front Line Arielle Rivera , Electrical and Computer Engineering Planning for Resilience to Hurricanes: Modeling to Generate Alternative Grid Hardening Options for Puerto Rico in Its Energy Transition Taryn Sebba , School of Public and International Affairs LAS 339 Art Archives in Latin America Liam Seeley , Spanish and Portuguese Vegetal Cartographies: Plant Aesthetics for After the End Dylan Shapiro , School of Public and International Affairs Reforming Review: Reconciling Majoritarianism with Marginalized Groups’ Rights in Constitutional Courts Sofia Teixeira , School of Public and International Affairs “Giving Mercosur a Human Face”:  An Evaluation of Civil Society’s Role in Latin American Regional Integration Jack Thompson , Spanish and Portuguese Brazil and the Venezuelan Migrant Crisis: Operação Acolhida, a Portrait of the Crisis, and the Politics of Venezuelan Migration in Brazil Daniel Trujillo , Civil and Environmental Engineering HIS 306 / LAO 306 / LAS 326 Becoming Latino in the U.S. Vian Wagatsuma , Ecology and Evolutionary Biology The Future of Air Conditioning and RSV Transmission in Miami, FL and Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico Gordon Walters , History Torn from their Gods, their Land, their Habits: The Miskitu People, Moravian Christian Missionaries, and Imperialism, 1849-1909 Jia Yu , Economics What Makes a Precious Stone? Analyzing the Intrinsic and Acquired Values of Pre-Columbian Jade through Cultural, Mercantile, and Technological Lenses.* Natalia Zorrilla , Philosophy LAS 362 / ANT 362 Central Americans and Asylum in the United States

Class of 2022

Julian Alvarez , Spanish and Portuguese From Biography to History: Frei Betto's Dialectical Pedagogy and the Comunidades Eclesiais de Base

Catherine Ardila H. Marques , Economics Evaluating the Role of Information Acquisition in School Choice: Evidence from a Randomized Experiment in Brazil

Diego Ayala-McCormick , Histor y The Transition to Free Labor in Puerto Rico: Class and Politics in a Nineteenth-Century Colony*

Sofía Briones Ramirez , Psychology LAS 325 / ART 381 / ANT 325 / SPA 397 Muertos: Art and Mortality in Mexico

Julia Campbell , Politics POL 367 / LAS 367 Latin American Politics

Emily Cruz , Civil and Environmental Engineering PHI 372 / SPA 393 / LAS 372 Latin American Philosophy

Willow Dalehite , Ecology and Evolutionary Biology SPA 363 / LAS 334 Critical Theory in Latin America and Beyond

Jacquelyn Davila , History LAS 307 / ANT 307 / ARC 317 / ART 388 Indigenous American Urbanism: Teotihuacan and its Legacy in Comparative Perspective

Germalysa Ferrer , Sociology Emotional Relief: A Study of International Crisis Response in Haiti

Alejandro Garcia , Politics LAS 312 / HIS 313 Revolution in Twentieth-Century Latin America

Sophia Goldberg , Chemistry LAS 313 / ANT 313 / LAO 313 / AMS 305 Race Across the Americas

Miguel I. Gonzales , Economics SPA 406 / LAS 410 Dark Matters

Kenneth Gonzalez Santibanez , History History, Race and Nation in Modern Latin America

Akiva Jacobs , Music ART 220 / LAS 230 Modern and Contemporary Latin American Art

Maya McHugh , Civil and Environmental Engineering ENV 455 / COM 454 / ENG 255 Sea Level Rise, Islands and the Environmental Humanities

Felipe Mendoza , Economics Education’s Impact on Inequality: A Simulation Study in Colombia and Policy Alternatives

Nate Moore , Politics LAS 234 / ANT 333 Rethinking the Northern Triangle: Violence, Intervention, and Resistance in Central America

Ashley Morales , School of Public and International Affairs LAS 302 / HIS 305 Latin America in Modern World History: Global and Transnational Perspectives, 1800 to the Present

Daniel Moreno , Economics LAS 217 / POL 271 / URB 217 / ANT 397 Culture, Politics, and Human Rights in Latin America

Mary Murphy , School of Public and International Affairs Debtor Dispositions: A Mixed Methods Analysis of Ecuadorian Attitudes Toward China's Development Footprint

MC Otani , Electrical and Computer Engineering LAS 313 / LAO 313 / AAS 331 Locked Up in the Americas: A History of Prisons and Detainment

Kathy Palomino , Sociology LAS 420 / GSS 458 / SPA 420 / ANT 423 Coloniality of Power: A Gender Perspective

Noel Peng , Spanish and Portuguese DIÓJUÀ (or Mai travels through Nepantla ... and not back)

Fernanda Romo Herrera Ibarrola , Politics Theatre as Resistance in Guerrero: Contesting the Memory of State Violence from the Dirty War to Ayotzinapa

Emily Sánchez , History Determining Freedom: Afro-Peruvians and the Meanings of Emancipation in Peru, 1850s*

Fatima Sanogo , School of Public and International Affairs WWS 364 / LAS 391 Human Rights in Latin America

Leonela Serrano , History Las Abuelas de la Plaza de Mayo and the Exceptionality of Children in Argentina Amnesty Law: Reconstituting Family and Democracy by Refuting Disappearance

María José Solórzano-Castro , Spanish and Portuguese In Times of War: Salvadoran-American Counterpoetics

Peter Taylor , Comparative Literature LAS 234 / ANT 333 Rethinking the Northern Triangle: Violence, Intervention, and Resistance in Central America

Hannah To , Economics Gender Differences in the Impact of Gangs on Labor Force Participation: Evidence from El Salvador

Amy Torres , Art and Archaeology "My Painting is an Act of Decolonization”: Viewing Wifredo Lam’s Vision of a Decolonial Future

Valeria Torres-Olivares , School of Public and International Affairs Materializing the Mexico-U.S. Border: A Text & Sentiment Analysis Approach to Immigration and Border Enforcement Policy

Eric Velasquez , Economics HIS 304 / LAS 304 Modern Latin America since 1810

Class of 2021

Lisa Abascal Larson, School of Public and International Affairs An Investigation of the Link Between Remittances to Cuba and Economic Liberalization

Daniela Alvarez, Spanish and Portuguese La Gran Cárcel: Two Militarized Borders, Two Failed Asylum Systems and a Mexico-Wide Prison

Celia Aranda Reina, Civil and Environmental Engineering Mapuche Language and Culture (Study abroad in Chile)

Bruno Emilio Aravena Maguida, Economics Discontinuity in Becas Chile: Evidence for the Merits of the Recently Cancelled Doctoral Grants Program

Germán Felipe Arrocha Boyd, School of Public and International Affairs El progreso acaricia tus lares: The Republic of Panama’s Fiscal and Institutional Decentralization

Daniel Benitez, Spanish and Portuguese Redefining Drag: The Art of Translating Gender

Brandon Shane Flora Dunlevy, Spanish and Portuguese Out of Sight, Out of Mind: Clandestinity, Resistance & Perceptions of Indigenous People in Castile

Amanda Eisenhour, African American Studies Quilombo Futurism: Translating Key Concepts in Afro-Brazilian Liberation

Erika Escalona Barragan, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology ANT 246/AMS 246 Native American and Indigenous Studies: An Introduction

Jocelyn Galindo, Anthropology SPA 220/LAS 220 El Género Negro: Crime Fiction

Jessica Gaytán, Anthropology “This Place is Sacred” Ecological and Community Regeneration in Pomona, CA Via Urban Farming

Roberto Hasbun, History “Americanos Todos”: Redefining U.S. Latino and Latina Identity in the Second World War

Jimin Kang, Spanish and Portuguese Tales from Indigenous Brazil: A Translation of Daniel Munduruku’s ‘Chronicles of São Paulo’ & ‘The Lessons I’ve Learned’ from the Portuguese

Rae Keazer, Spanish and Portuguese “I just like to sing”: Exploring La Lupe’s Unique Performance Style as a Nexus of Her Cultural Identity, Spiritual Journey, and Uninhibited Love for Salsa

Joice Kim, Anthropology The Words They Left Us: Examining the Sociopolitical Nature of Language *

Regina Lankenau, School of Public and International Affairs Weathering the Storm: Harnessing Climate Migration from Central America to Advance the Sustainable Development Agenda

Stephanie Lytle, Spanish and Portuguese HIS 303/LAS 305 Colonial Latin America to 1810

Jesús Martinez Garza, Spanish and Portuguese Irene, Gerardo, y Yo: An Imperfect Political Screening of The other, its Memory, and its Extremes

Asia Matthews, African American Studies A Story of Black Institutional Advocacy: The Journey of Arthur Alfonso Schomburg from San Juan, Puerto Rico to Harlem

Cierra Moore, Spanish and Portuguese AAS 303/LAS 363 Topics in Global Race and Ethnicity

Anglory Morel Espinal, Sociology Dominicano soy: A Comparative Study of Ethno-Racial Identity Transformation and Resistance among Dominicans in the United States and the Dominican Republic

Vic Panata, Art and Archaeology LAS 306 Topics in Latinx Literature and Culture: Latinx Literary Worlds

Jorge Rafael Pereira, Politics LAO 201/AMS 211/LAS 201 Introduction to Latino/a/x Studies

Alonso Perez Putnam, Politics Batalla Espiritual: An Analysis of the Emergence of Evangelical Identity-Based Politics in Costa Rica’s 2018 Presidential Elections

Rodrigo Iván Pichardo Urbina, Spanish and Portuguese God is Mexican American: Poetry Translations in Conversation with Historical and Contemporary Violence Towards Mexican Americans in the U.S.

Jacob Rob, School of Public and International Affairs Ending the Cold War Against Cuba: A Policy Recommendation for the Biden Administration

Ashley Roundtree, Spanish and Portuguese The Legend of Dandara: A Translation and Critical Analysis

Arianne Rowe, African American Studies The Discourses of Blanqueamiento: A Multilateral Analysis of 19th Century Racial Ideologies in the Making of Modern Argentina

Trinidad Santos, Spanish and Portuguese Fleeing on Foot: A Selected Translation of Alans Peralta’s Con el pais a cuestas

Lindsey Schmidt, School of Public and International Affairs A Push Towards Security: Drivers of Migration from Guatemala and El Salvador and Implications for U.S. Policy

Hannah Smalley, Spanish and Portuguese “Arquitectura Sin Arquitectura”: Reimaginando el Parque Biblioteca Espana Santo Domingo Savio Desde la Itinerancia

Leopoldo Solis Martinez, History Global Seminar 333 Becoming Brazil ( Fulfilled course requirements for LAS and Brazilian tracks)

Lydia Spencer, Spanish and Portuguese Todo bicho que camina que siga caminando: Feminism, Politics, and Identity: an Ethnographic Look at the Burgeoning Porteo Vegan Movement *

Annie Sullivan Crowley, Politics Democratic Disillusionment: Explaining the Rise of Far-Right Populism in Brazil

Alvin Synarong, Spanish and Portuguese O progresso social pelas paradas: How the São Paulo Pride Parade Reflects Progress for Queer Equality in Modern-Day Brazil

Leila Ullmann, African American Studies ’Negra, tu voz enseña’: Contemporary Anti-Racist and Anti-Sexist Activism in Cuba *

Jackson Vail, History Internationalist Science, Nationalist Geography, and Elite Notions of Progress: The Emergence of the Lima Geographic Society in Peru, 1888-1913 *

Abraham Waserstein, School of Public and International Affairs US Sanctions Against Venezuela: Another Case of Misguided Policy or a Crucial Tool in the Fight for Democratization? *

Marissa Webb, School of Public and International Affairs Never Fully Recovered: Argentina’s Vicious Cycle of Economic Growth and Default From 1982 to Today’s Crisis *

Francisca Weirich Freiberg, Anthropology POR 304/LAS 311 Topics in Brazilian Cultural and Social History: Listening to Brazil

Class of 2020

Karina Aguilar Guerrero, Spanish and Portuguese Alas pa’ Volar: Poetic Counter-Storytelling

Taylor Branch, African American Studies The Mark of Cain: Tattoo Surveillance and its Consequences in Brazil

Carolina Cantu, Anthropology The Politics of Indigeneity in Brazil: From Colonial Representations to Indigenous Activism Today

Kenji Cataldo, History “Somos más”: Decolonization and Environmental Activism in Contemporary Puerto Rico

Adam Chang, Operations Research and Financial Engineering Networks in a World Unknown: Public WhatsApp Groups in the Venezuelan Refugee Crisis

David Cordoba, Molecular Biology SPA 319/LAS 354 Topics in Cinema and Culture: White Men Gone Wild in Colonial Latin America

Maximo De La Cruz, Anthropology The Neglected: Black Workers in Modern-Day Brazil

Rui De Oliveira, Operations Research and Financial Engineering Whose Tweet is it Anyway? Classifying Tweets by Brazilian Users Through Supervised Machine Learning Techniques

Mabel Felix, Woodrow Wilson School “The People” Have Spoken: Explaining the Rise of Populism in Mexico and Brazil

Monica Gomez, Woodrow Wilson School A Study of the Colombian Venezuelan Migration Crisis: What Drives Colombia’s Open Arms Response?

Manuel Gomez Castaño, Politics The True Politician: Miraísm’s Hope and Virtue Politics

Menelik Graham, Politics Study Abroad Course: Caribbean Society: Continuity and Change

Bhadrajee Hewage, History “It Is Not Our Concept Of Democracy Which Is Now On Trial, But Yours”: Cheddism and the Resilience of Cheddi Jagan’s People’s Progressive Party, 1953–1964*

Reed Hutchinson, Linguistics SPA 534 Seminar in Medieval Spanish Literature: National Myths/Imperial Realities

Nourhan Ibrahim, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Shaping an Urban Landscape Through Community Engagement and State Support: An Analysis of Urban Agriculture in Havana, Cuba*

Nathalie Jimenez, Spanish and Portuguese Don y Responsabilidad: Initiatives Towards Sexual and Reproductive Health Education Reform in Costa Rica

Rachel Kasdin, Sociology GHP 350 Critical Perspectives in Global Health

Mikaylah Ladue, Anthropology Scars of Recovery: Unregulated, Brutal Addiction Treatment Facilities in Mexico*

Curtis Leonard, Anthropology LAS 414: Poverty, Inequality and Social Mobility in Latin America

Emma Louden, Astrophysical Sciences HIS 484/ LAS 484/ LAO 484/ AMS 484 Borderlands, Border Lives

Franklin Maloney, Operations Research and Financial Engineering LAS 376/ ECO 376 The Economic Analysis of Conflict

Anna Marsh, Architecture Roberto Burle Marx’s Parque do Flamengo: The Paradoxical Promotion of Brazil’s National Landscapes Through German Constructs

Marisela Neff, Chemistry LAS 328 Immigration Debates in the United States

Matthew Oakland, African American Studies “Las Apariencias Engañan”: Exploring the Hidden Transcripts of Cuban Rap

Sophia Paredes, Politics Free Will and Politics: Testing the Empirical Associations Between Free Will Beliefs and Political Ideology

Eduardo Paz, Economics International Spillovers of the U.S. Fed’s Monetary Policy: The Effect on Latin America

June Philippe, Spanish and Portuguese To Exist is to Resist: Black Transnational Thought & Aesthetic in Afro-Brazilian Identity, Appearance-Based Bias, & Hair Politics

Danny Pinto, German Zwischen Chilenidad und Ostalgie:Hybridität, Solidarität, und das Fremde: Chile-DEFA Films as Transnational Sites of Medialized Remembrance

Nathan Poland, African American Studies LAS 371/ SPA 372/ AAS 374 Cuban History, Politics and Culture

Katherine Powell, African American Studies Throwing the Voice, Constructing the Self: Black Feminisms and Literature in Martinique and Sénégal, 1930s – 1970s

Alejandra Rincon, Spanish and Portuguese Time Commences in Xibalba: A Queer Analysis of Gender Mestizaje and Trauma Temporalities

Gabriela Rivera, Anthropology Community Comes First: Recognizing the Past and Reimagining the Future After Hurricane María in Barrio Mariana

Cecilia Rojas, Economics Financial Inclusion as a Tool to Reduce Trafficking and Commercial Exploitation of Girls and Women in Mexico

Diana Sandoval Siman, Woodrow Wilson School Gang Violence and the Politics of Popular Punitivism in El Salvador

Peter Schmidt, Spanish and Portuguese A Mountain There

Emerson Thomas, Computer Science LAS 328 Immigration Debates in the United States

Betsy Vasquez, Neuroscience El Papel de la Santería en el Sistema de Salud Público de Cuba (Santeria in the Cuban Public Health System in Cuba)*

Katya Vera, Anthropology Implicit Bias Training and Servicio Social: A Comparative Analysis of Medical School Curricula in the United States and Mexico

Krystal Veras, Sociology ¡Vecina,Tráeme una Leche!: An Ethnographic Study of the Formation of Social Life and Transnational Identities in Dominican Bodegas in Lynn, Massachusetts

Caleb Visser, Politics Babies Across Borders: The International Politics of Adoption & Political Violence and ‘Dirty Wars’ in 20 th Century Latin America

Hadley Wilhoite, Spanish and Portuguese Representations of a Dictatorship and its Dissidents: An Analysis of Gender and Genre in Three Illustrations of the Trujillato

Alice Wistar, Spanish and Portuguese Eating Peru: Critical Analysis of the Gastronomic Revolution Through Food*

Class of 2019

Esteban Aguas, Economics Las Esposas Trabajadoras: Examining the Effect of Marriage on Female Labor Force Participation in Latin America

Patricia Beltran-Cortez, Spanish and Portuguese The Women of Calama Search for The Disappeared: Representations in Theory and Media

Luis Carchi, Woodrow Wilson School Programming Development: Software as an Alternative for Effective Structural Change in Ecuador

Matthew Doyle, Politics On Love and Life: Understanding Policy Outcomes of Marriage Equality and Abortion Legalization in Argentina

Alexander Fish, Neuroscience Film: Inin Niwe: The Plant Healer*

Steven Gomez, History The Memories of Imagined Communities: Constructing Historical Memories of the Armed Conflict in Colombia

Maria Heredia-Meza, Spanish and Portuguese SPA 235/LAS 235 Of Shipwrecks and Other Disasters

Fritz Hillegas, Woodrow Wilson School Constructing the Distrito Tecnológico: The Effect of Government and Media Discourse on Neighborhood Change in Parque Patricios, Buenos Aires

Isabel Hirshberg, Woodrow Wilson School Teacher Quality in Costa Rica: An analysis of Teacher Educational Attainment*

Isabel James, Urban Studies Life Under El Bloqueo: Cuban Public Opinion of US Policy

Samantha Jannotta, History Seeking Sanctuary: How a Religiopolitical Movement Challenged Notions of Westphalian Sovereignty

Kauribel Javier, Sociology LAS 372 Public Health and Private Healing in the Atlantic World

Maria Jerez, Woodrow Wilson School The Venezuelan Exodus: U.S. Immigration Policy in the Face of a Humanitarian Crisis

Lindsey Kelleher, History Confronting a Calamity: The Origins of the Salvadoran Civil War

Alexandra Kersley, History “Com Asas Te Imagino” Brazil’s Amnesty Movement and the 1979 Lei da Anistia

Devin Blake Kilpatrick, Sociology Sojourners from Central America: A Study of Contemporary Migrants & Migration from Guatemala to the United States

Chitra Kumar, Spanish and Portuguese #AbortoLegalYa: An Analysis of the Systemic Obstacles to Legalizing Abortion and its Consequences in Argentina

Rodrigo Moretti, Economics Meth-boom Mexico: How American Precursor Regulations fed Industrialized Cartel Production

Daniel Jose Navarrete, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology LAS 384 The Anthropology of Selected Regions (The Amazon)

Jose Pabon, Mathematics Cryptocurrency: Past Fraud, Present State, Future Game Theory Model

Benjamin Perelmuter, History Remembering the Revolution: Sergio Ramírez, the MRS, and the Sandinista Party *

Christian Ramos, Spanish and Portuguese The Syncretism of Two Worlds: Modern and Traditional Medicine in Peru

Katharine Reed, History Myths of Revolution: Development and State Violence in Mexico, 1968-1976

Jordan Salama, Spanish and Portuguese The Illusion of Memory: Four Weeks Down Colombia’s Magdalena River

Nora Schultz, Politics Anarchist Theories of Change and Action, with Practice in Uruguay

Janelle Spence, Spanish and Portuguese Black Film as Art Conceptions of Black Film in Brazil and Cuba

Daniel Sullivan, History The Southern Star of Empire: Shifting Attitudes Toward Mexico During the U.S. Civil War

Elizabeth Tian, Computer Science Investigating the Emerging Technology Ecosystem within Peru *

Rachel Todd, Spanish and Portuguese La Maldición de Antioquia: Stigma, Illness Metaphors and Caregiver Narratives of Early-Onset Alzheimer’s Disease in Colombia

Samuel D. Vilchez Santiago, Woodrow Wilson School From Revolution to Diaspora: Societal Responses to Venezuelan Migration in Cúcuta and Boa Vista

Catalina Vives, Economics The Effect of Crime Victimization on Institutional Disenfranchisement and Political Preferences in Mexico

Michael Wisner, Woodrow Wilson School Argentina, Brazil, and the Politics of Desert Storm Decision-Making *

Class of 2018

Paloma Aguas , Spanish and Portuguese Parliamentary Coup or Proper Impeachment? The Fall of Dilma Rousseff and the Collapse of Brazilian Democracy

Sophia Megan Alvarez , Anthropology LAS 363/ANT 387 Medicine and Society in Contemporary Cuba

Alexandra Kaitlyn Aparicio , Politics Sin El Campo, No Hay Futuro: Rural Protest in Argentina, 2007 - 2012

Chinenye Azoba , Molecular Biology LAS 395 Caribbean Revolutions: From Plantation Slavery to Global Tourism

Kyle Michael Berlin , Spanish and Portuguese Partial Catalogue of the End of the World: Fragments from Patagonia

Francisca Bermudez , Ecology and Evolutionary Biology SOC 210/LAS 210/URB 210/LAO 210 Urban Sociology: The City and Social Change in The Americas

Sarah Brennan , Spanish and Portuguese Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown: How Ibero-American Cinema Perpetuates and Dismantles Marianismo and Machismo-In uenced Gender Roles in Society

Alexandra Maria Corina Acevedo , Economics Understanding the Impact of South-South Trade Agreements: An Analysis of the MERCOSUR’s Effects on Trade Patterns

Lila Margaret Currie , History LAS 377/AAS 313/HIS 213 Modern Caribbean History

Samuel Davies , Politics Dissecting Dominicanidad: An Analysis of The Dominican Diaspora and Its Effect On Northeastern, Tri-State Politics

Alexandra Diamond , Spanish and Portuguese “¡Qué sucia está tu bebé!”: Medical Culture and the Doctor Patient Relationship in Argentina

Patrick Dinh , Spanish and Portuguese An Examination of Afro-Latino Blackness

Gabrielle Escalante , Psychology LAS 395 Caribbean Revolutions: From Plantation Slavery to Global Tourism

Maxwell Banks Grear , Spanish and Portuguese El Paquete Semanal: Informal Networks and Emerging Infrastructures in Cuban Media Myesha

Dortaya Jemison , Spanish and Portuguese LAS 395 Caribbean Revolutions: From Plantation Slavery to Global Tourism

Caroline Dwyer Jones , Woodrow Wilson School Colombia’s Take Two: Applying Lessons from the Paramilitary*

Faridah Emily Laffan , History “Philosophia a Vita Magistra”: The Order of Friars Minor in Colonial Salvador da Bahia

Jessica Lu , Comparative Literature Journey to the Jungle: Formulating Community in Postcolonial Travel Narratives of 20th Century Latin America

Erin Hannah Lynch , History Princeton in Cuba Study Abroad: Poetics, Analysis and Translation (course)

Kelly Ann McCabe , Spanish and Portuguese ART 367/LAS 373 Inca Art and Architecture

Mary Katherine McDonough , Woodrow Wilson School A Tale of 287(g) Counties: Diverging Municipal Immigration Policy in Hudson and Monmouth Counties, New Jersey

Gabriela Isabel Molina , Spanish and Portuguese Can Trees Speak?: Decolonizing Amazonian Imaginaries

Soraya Alejandra Morales Nuñez , Politics A Comparative Case Analysis of The International & Domestic Determinants of Judicial Reform in Mexico, 2012 – 2016

Victoria Navarro , Spanish and Portuguese Radical Women in Mexico: Contemporary works by Mexican women that re ect on violence, the body, and the collective

Diego E. Negrón-Reichard , Woodrow Wilson School Policy Responsiveness in Different Electoral Regimes: Majoritarian vs. Proportional Representation in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic

Camila Novo-Viaño , Woodrow Wilson School Outsourced Justice: An Evaluation of the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala and Its Potential for Replication

Maria De La Cruz Perales Sanchez , Woodrow Wilson School SPA 335: Mexico’s Tenth Muse: Sor Juana de la Cruz

Isaac Piecuch , History Endangered Species: Young Men Within Colombia’s Culture of Violence

Caitlin M. Quinn , Woodrow Wilson School The Differential Effect of Brazil’s Bolsa Família on School Enrollment Across Age Levels*

S amuel Chambers Rob , Woodrow Wilson School Reconciling Bioenergy and Food Production in Cuba: A Case for Integrating Competing Agricultural Models on the Caribbean’s Largest Island

Anna Amina-Rose Simon , African American Studies ART 419/LAS 399 Theory, History and Practice of Textiles: The Andes

Nehemiah Melaku Teferi , Politics Black, Queer, and Female: A place in the Cuban Revolution from 1959-Present*

Angélica María Vielma , Art and Archaeology Exhibition - The Incorruptible Body

Diego Vives Toro , Economics On the International Spillover Effects of the U.S. Fed’s Quantitative Easing: Lessons from Latin America

Joseph Edward Wood , Woodrow Wilson School Health Suffering in Argentina’s Villa 21-24: Lessons Learned from Environmental and Urban Neglect

Class of 2017

Miranda Alperstein,  Philosophy The Construction of the Socially Conscious Hip-Hop Movement*

Dylan Blau Edelstein,  Spanish and Portuguese Saudade de Nise: Memory and Mental Health in Rio de Janeiro

Eliza Anne Davis,  Woodrow Wilson School Exploring Foreign Aid and Indigenous Populations in Latin America*

Jose De Alba,  Economics Patria Progreso y Procede: An Econometric Analysis of Mexico's Primary Land-Titling Reform and Its Impact on the Pre-Existing Effects within Rural Communities

Sofia Hiltner,  Psychology La Respuesta a la Escasez: El Agro y la distribución alimentaria en Cuba*

Ava Rose Hoffman,  Independent Concentration in Comparative Urban Development Studies Everyday Violence: Representation and Resistance in Complexo do Alemão, Rio de Janeiro - Brazil

Krishan Ramesh Kania,  Spanish and Portuguese The Politics of Art and Medicine: A Case Study on the Development and Exportation of Contemporary Cuban Art and Cuban Health Care

Anne Elizabeth Kartheiser,  Woodrow Wilson School Structural Risk and Cognitive Protection: Social Capital and Criminal Victimization in Latin America and the Caribbean

Sergio Leos,  History Dos Patrias: Global and National Communities in the Universal Thought of José Martí

Juliana Lopez,  Spanish and Portuguese The Housing Problem: Exclusionary Practices and Socialist Revisionism in Turn-of-the-Century Havana

Adjoa Mante,  Spanish and Portuguese “ Incluir el Sentir del Pueblo " Healing la Comunidad Afro from Collective Trauma in Kilombo Niara Sharay

Erik Maritz,  Spanish and Portuguese Subversion through Self Starvation: Material and Symbolic Economies of Indigenous Women's Hunger in Bolivia

Francisco Martinez,  Woodrow Wilson School Uma Viagem Para Todos: Identifying and Analyzing the Determinants of Tourism Policy in Lula's Brazil

Lucas Mazzotti,  Woodrow Wilson School Understanding Environmentalism: A Comparative Case Study in Chile

Elizabeth McDonald,  Operations Research and Financial Engineering Situating Mexico’s New Electricity Auctions in Latin America’s Existing History of Electricity Auctions*

Lara Norgaard,  Comparative Literature States of Discourse Traces of Crime: Detective Fiction and the Social Construction of Memory in Post-Dictatorship Brazil and Argentina

Courtney Brittany Perales,  Anthropology Puerto Rico Nació En Mí:  Exploring Cultural Nationalism and Revolutionary Violence in Independence Movements

Vivian Ramirez,  Woodrow Wilson School More Money less Problems: Strategies in Mexican Education Reform

Edwin Rosales ,  English Spring on Fire: A Guatemalan Story*

Jennifer Shyue,  Comparative Literature Independent Translation Project*

Vanessa Smith,  Anthropology Taking a Closer Look:  The Ethics and Implications of the Collection Curation and Display of Cultural Objects within Museums

Charlotte Morris Williams,  Anthropology Making the Descendants: The Return of Machu Picchu's Artifacts to an Inca Nation

Emma Scott Wingreen,  Woodrow Wilson School Candidatas No Electas: Evaluating Chile’s Legislative Gender Quota

Lacey-Ann Alissa Wisdom,  History Between the Third World and the Whole World: Michael Manley's Doomed Campaign for Economic Independence and Change in Jamaica 1972-1980

Margaret Wright,  English Soleida Ríos*

Yihemba Yikona,  Politics Let Their Voices Be Heard: Afro-Descendant Inclusion in the 2016 Colombian Peace Agreement

Class of 2016

Selome Rosalie Olivia Adechi , Spanish and Portuguese Sell Thy Neighbor: Exploring Transformations in Cuban Art Financed and Sold Abroad

Sophia Celine Aguilar , Politics The Implications of Labeling on Attention and Resource Allocation to Internally Displaced Persons in Mexico City

Alexander Davidson Beatty , History El Conflicto Armado en Colombia: The National Front, Regional Elites, and the Rise of Paramilitarism

Dennisse Carolina Calle , Sociology El Paquete: A Qualitative Study of Cuba’s Transition from Socialism to Quasi-Capitalism

Nathan Lang Eckstein , Woodrow Wilson School Public Opinions of Free Market, Democracy, and the US in Latin America

Marlin Yoselin Paola Gramajo , Sociology East LA’s “Beverly Hills:” Neighborhood Realities and Developers’ Fantasies in Tierra De Luz, Boyle Heights

Johannes Magnus Hallermeier , Philosophy Refugees and Economic Migrants: Two Groups with Similar Claims to be Admitted to Foreign Countries

Megan Joanne Harewood , Politics Apan Jhant / Vote for Your Own Kind: The Impact of Political Competition and Elite Frustrations on Ethnic Conflict in Trinidad and Guyana

Helena Michelle Hengelbrok , Anthropology Water Belongs to Those Who Are Thirsty: An Ethnography of Water, Political Belonging, and Health in Urubamba, Peru

Benjamin Harper Hummel , History The Case of the Cuban Poet Padilla: Contentious Negotiations and Fractured Relationships of the Latin American Boom Generation, 1971

Nicolas Hurtado-Ramirez , Woodrow Wilson School FIFA’s Host Country Demands: A Comparative Case Study of Colombia and Mexico for the 1986 World Cup

Manuel Eduardo Marichal , Politics Unveiling the Puerto Rican Debt Crisis: An Analysis of Federal and Local Level Political Catalysts

Mary Ann Ferguson McNulty , Woodrow Wilson School When Environmental and Social Crises Collide: Problems in the Periphery are Center Stage in the São Paulo Water Crisis

Seth Merkin Morokoff , Economics The Impact of Brazil’s Bolsa Familia on Child Labor Supply Effects by Age and Employment Sector

Isabela Maria Peña Gonzalez , Woodrow Wilson School Putting a Price Tag on the American Dream: The Politics of the EB-5 Investor Visa

Isabella Marie Peraertz , Woodrow Wilson School Democratizing Transportation: A Comparative Analysis of Accessibility and Public Private Partnerships in Bogotá’s TransMilenio and Rio de Janeiro’s BRT Rio

Kourtney Pony , Comparative Literature Complicating the Narrative: Viewing Medicine through A Literary Lens in Brazilian Lupus Patient Testimonies

Melody Zhang Qui,  Woodrow Wilson School To Push or to Cut? Decision-Making in Childbirth Amid the Brazilian Cesarean Epidemic

Christian Eduardo Pérez Rodriguez , Economics Remittances and Dutch Disease in Mexico: An Analysis of the Macroeconomic Effects of Surging Remittance Flows

Andrea Roxana Rodríguez Gallego , Woodrow Wilson School The Electoral Returns of Hugo Chávez’s Bolivarian Missions in Venezuela

Abdiel Santiago ,  Politics In the Shadow of the Stars and Stripes: An Experimental Analysis on the Manufacturing of Support for Puerto Rican Statehood

Kasturi Sanjiv Shah , Physics Modeling Freshwater Supply from its Origin: At High-Altitude Glaciers

Jamie Lee Shenk , History Where Were You When They Killed Lara Bonilla? Politics of Drugs and Peace in Colombia (1982-1984)

Alvaro Sottil , Philosophy Defining the Problems of Carnap’s Aufbau*

Sol Taubin , Civil and Environmental Engineering Modeling Dissolved Oxygen Levels in the Navarrete-Cañuelas Sub-Basin Of the Matanza-Riachuelo River Watershed Provincia de Buenos Aires, Argentina

Lea Mariah Trusty , Politics The Transformation of Ser Negro: Afro-Colombian Social Movements in the Late Twentieth Century

Rachel Louise Updike , Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Measles in the “Post-Elimination” United States: Threats and Implications of Vaccine Refusal and Domestic Immunization Policy in the Third Millennium

Adriana Thais Vitagliano , Woodrow Wilson School Emerging Entrepreneurship and Foreign Investment in Cuba

Zachary Wilhelm Wall , History Islands of Insanity: U.S. Intervention in Brazil and the Dominican Republic, 1964-1966

Alanna Williams , Economics Democratic Deepening or Degradation? Economic Analyses of Municipal Participatory Democracy in Peruvian Security Administration

Karis Haejin Yi , Politics State Incentives in Civil War Negotiations: Military Autonomy in Guatemala And Turkey

Class of 2015

Elise Rosalie Backman, Woodrow Wilson School Nosso Norte é o Sul: Brazil’s Membership in Mercosul and Strategies for Institutional Reform

Logan Hall Coleman, Politics Recontextualizing Las Maras: Policing Failures and the Evolution of Gang Violence in Central America

Celina Pearl Culver, Woodrow Wilson School U.S. Impact on Democratic Civilian Control in Latin America

Brett Timothy Diehl, History Between the Old Republic and the New State: Constructing Social Order in Rio de Janeiro, 1930–1937

Joan Fernandez, History (Un)clear Transmission: Radio Marti and the Search for Miami’s Cuban Community, 1980-1987

Rafael Saiz García, Woodrow Wilson School Lessons in Transitional Justice, Spain: The Dog That Never Barked

Maeli Ariel Goren, Comparative Literature The Story of Mamãe: An Original Play for Young Audiences Inspired by José de Alencar’s Iracema

Alexandra Lâle Gürel, History Conflict and Cooperation: The Rockefeller Foundation’s Relationship with the Medical and Nursing Schools of São Paulo, 1916-1944

Tyler Paige Hastie, Woodrow Wilson School Seeking Success: A Comparative Study of Brazil and South Africa as Regional Powers

Daniel Paul Johnson Jr., Woodrow Wilson School Neutralizing Fractionalization

Ariana Lieselotte Lazzaroni, Economics Implementing Sterilized Intervention under an Inflation Targeting Regime: An ARCH Model Approach

Camille Yuying Lin, Woodrow Wilson School Vaccine Procurement in Developing Countries: A Case Study of the Revolving Fund

Yessica Martinez, Comparative Literature A Tale of Conquering

Rachel Parks,  Anthropology Bolivians in Brazil: The Interface of Culture, Race, and Health in an Immigrant Community of São Paulo

Shayla Reid, Spanish and Portuguese Mulher como Protagonista : Women’s Experiences with Parto Humanizado in São Paulo, Brazil

Eleanor F. Roberts, Politics Unaccompanied Alien Minors from Central America: For Expanding U.S. Immigration Protections

Marcelo Alonso Rochabrun Ore, History In Search of a Liberal Mandate: The Political Campaign of Mario Vargas Llosa

Radha Sarkar, Politics The Rebels’ Resource Curse: A Comparison of the Naxalites in India and the FARC in Colombia

Misha Semenov,  School of Architecture Playing by the Rules: Examining the Interactions of Rules, Built Form, and Social Behavior in American Residential Communities

Elizabeth Ann Tolman, Physics Force-Free Magnetohydrodynamics Near Kerr Black Holes

Nshira Abena Turkson, Woodrow Wilson School Litany for the Black City: Ghetto Reform Policy in South Africa, Brazil and the United States

Class of 2014

David Abugaber, Independent Language Shift from Ixil Mayan to Spanish in a Highland Guatemalan Town

Miryam Amsili, History Nazi-Fascist, Anti-Semite, or Anti-Zionist? The Roots of the Debates Surrounding Tacuara in Argentina

Alejandro Arroyo Yamin, Archaeology Masked Exoticism: Relating Architecture to Authentic Experiences in Mexican Beach Resorts

Rachael Baitel, Politics Rising Through the Ranks: A Comparative Analysis of the Pathways to Power of Current Women Presidents in Latin America

Cecilia Buerkle, Comparative Literature Torn at the Border: Seeking Home and Identity on Mango Street

Madison Bush, History The Books of Angelópolis: A Study of the Book Culture and Libraries in Puebla de los Ángeles: 1531-1640

Agnes Cho, Anthropology Commodifying Cookstoves: Social Entrepreneurship and the Improved Cookstove Industry

Luc Cohen, Woodrow Wilson School Exit, but Mostly Exclusion: Policy Options for Reducing the Size of Mexico's Informal Economy

Andrea DeLeon, Economics Expectation and Utilization: Socioeconomic Determinants of Access to and Attitudes Towards Brazilian Health Care

Elizabeth Driggs, Economics Positive Side Effects: The Interaction between Conditional Cash Transfer Programs and Women's Empowerment

Ryan Elliott, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Triatomines and Trypanosomes: Fitness Impacts of Trypanosoma cruzi and Trypanosoma rangeli Mono- and Co-infections in the Triatomine Vector Rhodnius prolixus

Lukas Gaffney, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Assessment of the Influence of Primate Species, Deforestation, and Tree Cover on Malaria Transmission in Latin America

Iara Guzman, Politics Protracted Conflict in Colombia: How Incentive Structures Shape Negotiations and Their Outcomes

Emily Hill, Woodrow Wilson School The American Human Rights Convention: Motivations and Efficacy

Damali James, Woodrow Wilson School Dominican Denationalization: A Discussion of TC0168-13 and Factors of Dominican Immigration Policy

Kelsey D. Janke, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Human Land-Use and Forest Regeneration as Drivers of Bat Diversity and Activity in a Tropical Dry Forest

Abril Loya Enriquez, English "El Olvido Está Tan Lleno De Memoria": Cultural Memory Salience in Chile and Mexico through Isabel Allende's "The House of the Spirits" and Roberto Bolaño's "Amulet"

Amanda Morgan Mitchell, History Cuba Aqui and Allá : Between the Boom and Revolution 1959-1971

Arianna Munguia, Politics More than Just Money: A Case Study on the Effects of Remittances and Immigration in the Salvadoran Towns of Chirilagua, Intipucá and El Cuco

Rebecca Newmark, Anthropology The Fruit of their Labor: Placentophagia and Embodied Meaning-Making Among American Women

Neelay Patil, Woodrow Wilson School Neglecting "A New Beginning": Stagnant U.S. - Cuba Relations Under Barack Obama

Minerva H. Pedroza, Anthropology Lives in Transition: Navigating Public Trans Healthcare in São Paulo, Brazil

Clayton Taylor Platt, Woodrow Wilson School Misguided Goals on the International Stage: An Analysis of the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, and the Economic and Social Implications of Developing Nations Hosting Mega-Events

Brian Reilly, Woodrow Wilson School Civilians in the Killing Business? A Case Study of Post-9/11 Paramilitary Action by the Central Intelligence Agency in Pakistan

Erika Rios, History Chile's Divided Path to Revolution: An Analysis of the Movement of the Revolutionary Left (Mir), 1964-1973

Christian J. Rivera, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Facing the 2013 Gold Rush: A Population Viability Analysis for the Endangered White-Lipped Peccary ( Tayassu pecari) in Corcovado National Park, Costa Rica

Sloan Rudberg, Woodrow Wilson School Mind the Gap in São Paulo: An Analysis of Airport Access and Integrated Transportation in Brazil's Federal Infrastructure Policies

Daniel Santillan, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Stability Augmentation of an Oblique Wing RC Aircraft

Brittany Serafino, Woodrow Wilson School Storming the Gates: How Gated Communities and the "Mexodus" Have Contributed to Residential Segregation since the Turn of the Century

Steven Server, History Dos Arbolitos: Cultivating the US-Mexican Border

Peter Smith, Sociology Where's the Beef? Cultural and Socioeconomic Determinants of Meat Consumption in Brazil

Carrico Ana Torres, Politics The Emergence of Global Slums: Colonialism and State Policy in Brazil and South Africa

Alejandro Van Zandt-Escobar, Computer Science Gesture Variation Estimation for Whole-Body Movement Interactions

Lauren Wyman, Economics Analyzing the Impact of a Dual Lizard Introduction on Orb-weaving Spider Communities in the Bahamas: An Experimental Approach

Gibran Osvaldo Zavalza, Politics Understanding the Mexican Voter: Major Factors Influencing Voter Choice in the Context of the 2012 Presidential Election

Naomi Zucker,  Anthropology Visions of Health and Care in São Paulo, Brazil

Class of 2013

Alexander Aguayo, Comparative Literature Coming Apart at the Seams: Unstable Identities in Manuel Puig’s Kiss of the Spider Woman

Monica Ines Beltran, Woodrow Wilson School Educational Promises and State Failures: A Comparative Study of General Education and Intercultural Bilingual Education Policy in Peru

Osasumwen Edamwen Benjamin, Comparative Literature Transnational Angst: Black Existentialism in Contemporary Afro-Brazilian Narratives

Lauren Ann Castro, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Flight Performance of Trypanosome-Infected Rhodnius Pallescens: Implications for the Spatio-Temporal Spread of Chagas Disease in Rural Landscapes

Courtney Allen Crumpler, Anthropology Cultivating Health in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Brandon Scott Davis, Anthropology Desiring Israel: Gays, Jews, and Homonationalism*

Briyana Clarel Davis, Sociology (Re)defining The Activist Occupation: Identity, Intersectionality, and LGBT Activism in Salvador da Bahia

Carly Therese De La Hoz, Architecture The Favela Typology: Architecture in the Self-Built City Certificate in Latin American Studies, Brazilian Track

Andrea de Sá, Woodrow Wilson School Brazil’s Nuclear Submarine Program: Navigating the Uncharted Waters of the Non-Proliferation Treaty

Carrie Allison Diamond, Spanish and Portuguese Dentro do Campo the Metaphor of Brazilian Soccer: Race, Space and Language

Ubaldo Escalante, Architecture Contemporary Latin American Modernism

Ashley Elizabeth Evelyn, Spanish and Portuguese The Formation of Transnational Black Identity among African-Descendants in Early Twentieth Century Cuba

Angelica Marie Ferrandino, Spanish and Portuguese Grains of Race in Cartagena de Indias: A Study of Cuisine and Power in Cartagena, Colombia

Aseneth Garza, Anthropology Politics of Memory in Post-War Guatemala: Church and State Accounts of Civil War

Thomas Peixoto Irby, History Military Rule in Brazil: Narratives Concerning Human Rights and Development (1961-1978)

Amy Marie Olivero, Woodrow Wilson School Targeting the Supply, Not the Demand: Inconsistencies in U.S. Immigration Enforcement

Dimitris Papaconstantinou, Philosophy Facts and Fallibility: Establishing a Fallibilist Public Sphere

Daniela del Rocio Perea, Politics Politics of Giving: Explaining Divergent Tax Policies in Mexico and the United States

Sofia Agustina Quinodoz , Molecular Biology Photography & Memory: How Argentina Remembers the Dirty War*

Luis Alejandro Ramos, Politics Educating Chile: A Forensic Investigation of the Ongoing Chilean Student Movement

Grecia Abigail Rivas, Comparative Literature From the Page to the Screen: An In-Depth Analysis of Representations of Race in Fernando Meirelles’ “City Of God”

Erika Loren Smith, Chemistry Unveiling the Mysteries of Maya Color: Characterization of Late Classic Maya Ceramic Vessel Pigments

Kaya Leigh Ten-Pow, Woodrow Wilson School Are We Fighting the Wrong War? Cocaine Consumption in Latin America and the Global Drug Policy Paradigm

Flora Carpenter Thomson-DeVeaux , Spanish and Portuguese Sex, Death, and the Aristocracy: The Universal History of Santiago Badariotti Merlo (*Although Not Necessarily in That Order)* Certificate in Latin American Studies, Brazilian Track

Emily Ann VanderLinden , Politics The Politics of Education: Comparing Centralization in Chile and Cuba

Erick Walsh , Economics Financial Dollarization and Financial (In)Stability: Evidence from Latin America

James Bailey Williams, Politics Security Cooperation in the Americas: Explaining the Institutionalization of the Inter-American Security Regime

Class of 2012

Katherine Alvarez, Sociology Constructing Social Change: A Study of Medellín’s Social Urbanism

Stephanie Marie Alvarez, Politics Innovation and Success: Medellín System for the Provision of Services to the Displaced Population

Luciana Fernanda Chamorro Elizondo, Anthropology Narrating the Nicaraguan Civil War: An Ethnographic Account of Re-membering in San Juan del Norte

Mayenne Gael Chess, English Like So Many Views Seen Through Bright Glass: The Train as a Modernist Symbol in Texts by Ford, Lawrence and Cortázar

Sophia Marie D’Angelo, Spanish and Portuguese Inter-Caribbean Relations and the Afro-Caribbean Diaspora: Race and Nationalism in Haitian, Dominican and Puerto Rican Popular Culture

Addie Marie Darling, Comparative Literature Veritas in Nihilum : An Investigation of the Poetry of Roy Campbell, Octavio Paz & Juan de la Cruz

Aparajita Das, Economics Tudo Monitorado: The Impacts of Military Pacification on Crime Rates in Rio de Janeiro

María José Dobles Madrigal, Woodrow Wilson School Violence and Drug Trafficking in Central America: "The Ghosts of Institutions Past, Present and Future"

Brianna Nicole Eastridge, Anthropology Dime con Quién Andas y te Diré Quién Eres: The Development of Mexican-Americans as a New Social Class in the United States

Adriana Maria Estor, Politics The Question of Project Lending: A Comparative Analysis of the Effectiveness of the World Bank in Latin America

María Julia Gutiérrez, Woodrow Wilson School Devising Regional Solutions: An Analysis of Violence Trends in Northern Mexico, 1997-2010

Laura Elizabeth Hamm, Anthropology Mapuche Resurging: the Reappropriation of Indigenous Struggle in the Chilean Nation

Ricardo López, Spanish and Portuguese Narcotraduccíon: Reacciones y Lecciones del Lenguaje ante la “Mexican Drug War”

Leo Daniel Mena, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Creating Connection: Live Fence Structure and its Role in Sustaining Avifauna Diversity in Panama

Martha Melissa Montoya, Sociology Escondido Transformed: How the Highly Visible Latino Population Becomes Invisible

Stephanie Morales, Spanish and Portuguese Projeto Orla 2005: The Barraqueiros’ Lack of an Agenda and the Imbalance of Power Which Led to The Demolishment of the Barracas

J. David Peña, Politics Racist Violence and Immigration in Spain: impact on the Latin American, North African and Eastern European Immigrant Groups

Niurka Grissel Peralta Malena, Sociology The Color of Money: Trade, Gender and Nationality in a Dominican Market

Hannah Rose Sanzetenea, Spanish and Portuguese ‘El Tiempo Vuela’: La Vida, la Muerte, y el Tiempo en un Libro Infantil Ilustrado Original

Andréa Gabriella Schiller, Politics Somebody Save Us: The Role of the Federal Government in Bailouts

Natalie Helen Shoup, Operations Research and Financial Engineering Sustainable Energy Economics: Optimizing the Integration of Renewables in Guatemala

Lindsay Marie von Clemm, Economics A Macro Stress Testing Framework of Liquidity Risk in the Latin American Banking Sector

Tiffania Lissette Willetts, Economics The True Cost of an Education: Income's Effect on Educational Attainment in Buenos Aires, 1980-2006

Sojung Yi,  Anthropology Uncharted: Territorialization of Health Care and the Travails of the Urban Poor in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Erica Meyer Zendell, Comparative Literature Bread, Circuses, and Steel: Mega-Sporting Events, National Image, and Modernization in China and Brazil (Beijing 2008, Brazil 2014, and Rio 2016)

Class of 2011

Chinekwu O. Anunwa,  Woodrow Wilson School Defending  La Hoja Sagrada:  Cocalero Movements and Political Change in Bolivia and Peru

Christopher Peter Bellaire,  Woodrow Wilson School Civil-Military Relations in Counterinsurgency Campaigns: An Analysis of the Peace Process in Colombia and Afghanistan

Cantey Sutton Brown,  Politics Colossus of the North: Understanding Sources of Anti- and Pro-American Sentiment in Latin America

Marieugenia Cardenas,  Spanish and Portuguese Image Through Film, Testimony and Verse: Representations of the 1968 Tlatelolco Student Massacre

Alexander Michael Cordones Cook,  Comparative Literature Single-Sex Theory in Postmodern Latin American Narrative: The Metaphorics of Gender Transgression in René Marqués and César Aira

Lauren Katherine Cubellis,  Anthropology Walking an Authentic Path: The  Curandera  and Alternative Medicine in the Southwest United States

Alissa Maria Escarce,  History Radical Roads and Tamed Revolutions: Mexico’s National Indigenist Institute in Highland Chiapas, 1951–1953

Joshua Benjamin Franklin,  Anthropology Claiming the Right to Transgender Health in Brazil

Adrian Gallegos Gallegos,  Spanish and Portuguese Pedro Páramo Excerpt Translated

Sierra Rose Gronewold,  Anthropology A Defense of Culture: The Experience of Latin American Immigrants in the Bronx Family Court

Rocío Gutiérrez,  Comparative Literature Los Hombros Encogidos: Truth and Myth in Roberto Bolaño’s Amuleto, Los Detectives Salvajes, and 2666

Phyllis Lucille Heitjan,  Spanish and Portuguese Living Ghosts and Time Warps: Art Remembering Argentina’s Last Dictatorship

Julia Mae Kaplan,  Woodrow Wilson School Institutionalizing South America: The Union of South American Nations

Julia Collins Kearny,  Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Chagas Disease in Tarija, Bolivia: A Population Dynamics Model for Predicting Prevalence in Host and Vector Populations

Natalie Julia Kitroeff,  Woodrow Wilson School Touching the ‘Untouchables’: An Evaluation of the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala

Cynthia Laura Kroll,  Spanish and Portuguese El Acceso al Agua en las Colonias de Laredo, Texas: Salud, Representación, e Incertidumbre

Kevin Edward McGinnis,  Woodrow Wilson School Household Water for All in Lima, Peru: State or Private Sector Solutions?

Megan Elizabeth McPhee,  Woodrow Wilson School Walking the Last Three Feet Without Boots on the Ground: Public Diplomacy and Stabilization in Fragile States

Pauline Karen Nalikka,  Spanish and Portuguese O Baile Todo: Representations of Women in Funk Carioca

Emily Constance Nguyen,  Politics Mandatory Voting Policy in Latin America: A Comparative Study of Democratic Representation

Manuel Pérez,  History Organizing for Power: Indigenous Responses to Oil Drilling in Ecuador

Alyssa Christine Pont,  Politics Social Movements, Indians, and the Internet: How Internet-Based Communication Technology Affected Indigenous Movements in Mexico

Isabel Christine Ramírez,  Spanish and Portuguese Music, Miscegenation and the  Mulata  in the Tropics: Analogous Expressions of Fascination in the  Poemas Negros  of Jorge de Lima and Luis Palés Matos

Philip M. Rothaus,  Spanish and Portuguese Madness in Translation: Language, Laughter and Loucura in " O Alienista "

Elías Ramón Sánchez-Eppler,  Woodrow Wilson School New Patterns, New Places, New Perspectives; What Post-Transitional Fertility Patterns Tell Us about Argentine Fertility and What Argentina Tells Us about Them

Patricia Maria Sever,  Spanish and Portuguese La Vaga Coherencia del Mundo: Perception and Creation in Adolfo Bioy Casares’ La invención de Morel and Plan de Evasión

Claudia Alejandra Solís-Roman,  Woodrow Wilson School Challenges of Universal Access to AIDS Treatment in Brazil

Isaiah Mark Usher,  Woodrow Wilson School Accountability in Action: Empowerment and the Quality of Care in Rural Mexico

Class of 2010

Carolina Isabel Ardila-Zurek,  Politics The Rise and Fall of the Medellín and Cali Cocaine Organizations

Felipe Gutiérrez Cabrera,  Comparative Literature Responses to Latin American State Terrorism in Literature and the Visual Arts

Denzel R.B. Cadet,  Comparative Literature The Indelible Stain of Blackness: Expressions of Nationalism in Dominican and Haitian Poetry

Alex Kerbel Gertner , Anthropology Pharmaceutical Care, Public Experiments, and Patient Knowledge in the Brazilian Public Healthcare System

Andrés Rodrigo Guerra,  Anthropology Pride,  Polvo , and Pharmaceuticals: A Case Study on the Asthmatic Anomaly in Puerto Rico

Carlos Santiago Imberton,  Politics Understanding Patterns of Violence in El Salvador: Gangs, Governmental Policy and Civilian Response

Maria J. Lacayo,  History A Fervent, Frail Hope: Fragile Democracies and the Human Rights Conventions in Europe and Latin America

Thomas Vincent López,  Woodrow Wilson School Combating Coca : From the District of Columbia to  el Distrito Capital

Eric Javier Macías,  Woodrow Wilson School Assessing the Cycle of Poverty in the Evaluation of  Oportunidades  and  Bolsa Família : A Cross-National Study of Conditional Cash Transfer Programs

Ruth Ngolela Byrnes Metzel,  Ecology and Evolutionary Biology From “ Finca”  to Forest: Forest Cover Change and Land Management in Los Santos, Panama

Anna Trumbull Moccia-Field,  Woodrow Wilson School Worker Participation in Latin American Pension Systems: Lessons from the Reforms in Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay

Rafael G. Palomino Badilla,  Sociology Take It or Leave It: Perceptions Towards a Victim Compensation Fund in Northern Mexico

Kalyani Parthasarathy , Economics Capacity Utilization and Economic Policy - Argentina and Brazil: 1970–2004

Alejandro Perez , Spanish and Portuguese A Devious Odyssey: Roberto Bolaño’s Anti-epic

Mónica Teresa Ramírez de Arellano,  Woodrow Wilson School Drilling through the Layers of Uncertainty: Brazil’s Social Gain or Resource Curse?

Fernando Salvador Sánchez,  Sociology Keeping the Planner’s Promise: The Impact of Building for Olympic Events on the Social and Economic Demography of the City

Andrew Michael Segal,  Spanish and Portuguese Imaginação Geográfica: An Examination of the Instituto Histórico e Geográfico Brasileiro’s 19th Century Efforts to Territorialize Brazil

Gustavo Andrés Silva Cano,  Woodrow Wilson School The Worst Solution Except for All the Others: A Cost-Benefit Analysis of Drug Prohibition and Legalization in Colombia

Catalina Valencia,  Politics Colombia: Bending the Rules to Reparative Justice

Christine Elizabeth Vidmar,  Sociology Ironbound: An Ethnographic Study of Brazilian Immigrants in Newark, New Jersey

Class of 2009

Dylan Rich Alban , Spanish and Portuguese The Wandering Musicians: A Translation, History, and Commentary

Kristen Nicole Badal , Politics Women in Latin American Politics: A Family Affair

Molly Elizabeth Borowitz , Comparative Literature Between the Lines: Grotesque Allegory and Sociopolitical Commentary in Baudelaire, Orozco, Kafka, and Casey

Shannon Marie Brink , Woodrow Wilson School Staying Ahead Collectively?: Evaluating the Inter-American Foundation in the Footsteps of A.O. Hirschman

Jacob Rodney Candelaria , Woodrow Wilson School Contemporary Venezuelan Oil Policy: An Institutional Analysis

Madeline Elise Carroll , Art and Archaeology Mythic Moments: A Comparative Contextualization of Classic Period Maya Vases and the “ Popol Vuh "

Yvonne Marie Chasser , Spanish and Portuguese La Salud Reproductiva de las Comunidades Indígenas y Marginadas en Latinoamérica: Un Argumento para la Re-incorporación de la Partería Tradicional

Luke Marshall Goodwin , History Selling Sickness: The Argentine Press and the 1976 Coup d’État

Tolu Kafilat Lanrewaju , Anthropology The Invisible Population: HIV/AIDS along the U.S.-Mexico Border

Douglas Clark Lennox II , Anthropology Swimming Up This Mean Stream: An Anthropological Attempt at Solving the “Puerto Rican Problem” through an Olympic Lens

Daniel Simon Levien , Woodrow Wilson School A Transformative Venture? Considering Cultural Tourism and Economic Empowerment in Post-Apartheid South Africa

Johanna Desiree López , Sociology Negotiating Motherhood: The Implications of Gender in the Migrant Experiences of Salvadoran Transnational Mothers

Thomas William Methvin , Sociology The New Mexican-Americans: International Retirement Migration and Development in an Expatriate Community in Mexico

Diana Ruth Norton , Spanish and Portuguese Jorge Negrete in Spain: The First Certamen Cinematográfico Hispanoamericano, Jalisco canta en Sevilla and the Discourse on Hispanidad

Monique Lorraine Roberts , Politics International Regime Complexity: A Case Study of Cooperation between the World Health Organization and the Pan American Health Organization

Vanessa Rodríguez , History Henequen in Modern Yucatan, 1750–1910: Labor Arrangements and the Transition from Subsistence to Capitalism

Mauricio Sánchez de la Paz , Economics An Empirical Study of the Effect of Immigration on Wages: New Evidence from the Immigrant Population

Hugo Arellano Santoyo , Physics Religión en la Sierra: The Making of a National Sanctuary: Santa Catarina Juquila, Mexico*

Elizabeth Bowlsby Schwall , History Dance Dance Revolution: Concert Dance, Cubanidad, and the Cuban Revolution

Kristen Marjorie Scott , Politics Retributive Justice and Trials in the Southern Cone

Alexandra Leigh Smith , Spanish and Portuguese Surreal Salvador Dali: The Paranoiac Critical Challenge

Jay David Thornton , History Making Something of a Revolution: Antonio Maceo’s Attempt to Institutionalize Cuba’s 1898 War for Independence

Laura Pier Valle , Sociology In Pursuit of Success: Ethnicity and Social Capital in the Professional Workplace

Lauren Ashley Whitehead , Spanish and Portuguese La Herencia Agridulce: “Bittersweet Inheritance” Race and Ethnicity from Early Iberia to Modern Latin America

Whitney Erica Williams , Woodrow Wilson School Brasil AfroAtitude ( Quinto Ano do Programa ): A Roadmap for the Evaluation and Sustainability of Brazil’s First Scholarship Program for Quota Students

Milana Zaurova , Woodrow Wilson School Fastfoodería vs. Fritura : A Qualitative Analysis of Nutrition-Related Health Behavior of Mainland and Island Puerto Ricans

Class of 2008

Carlos Eduardo Arreche Aguayo , Mathematics Las Letras Antes de las Armas: Las Alianzas en la Poética Bélica de José Martí*

David Brett Baker, IV , Spanish and Portuguese Luis Sepúlveda: ¿Una Voz Literaria Representativa del Medio Ambiente en Chile? 

Nana-Ama N. Boayke , History ¿Todo Hombre Tiene el Derecho? A Look into the Chilean Rights Discourse, 1973-1978

Christopher Thomas Breen , Politics Confronting Challenges to U.S. Hemispheric Leadership: A Comparative Study of Policy Responses to the Governments of Hugo Chávez and Evo Morales

Monica Nicole Cepak , Politics Going Global: The Struggle for International Unionism in Latin America

Timothy Paul Cheston , Woodrow Wilson School The Politics of South-South Trade Policy: The Causes and Consequences of the Silent Revolution in Trade

Luke Jonathan Cohler , Woodrow Wilson School Para Inglês Ver? An Evaluation of Urban Planning Policies in Curitiba, Brazil

Julia Lea Frydman , Spanish and Portuguese Authoring Memory, Elena Poniatowska’s  La noche de Tlatelolco  and Carlos Monsiváis’  Días de Guardar : Accounts of the 1968 Mexican Student Movement

Nathan M. Geller , Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Characterizing the Effect of Land-Use on the Nitrogen Cycle in Northwestern Costa Rica: A Novel Evaluation of Human Disturbance in the Tropics

Michael D. Hidalgo , Spanish and Portuguese Rebellious Rhetoric: Intellectuals and Guerrillas in México and Colombia

Kurt William Kuehne , Politics Making a Killing: The Rise of Colombia’s Paramilitary Proto-State

Kathryn Ashley Lankester , Woodrow Wilson School ¿Progreso y Prosperidad? The Effects of Mexico’s Neoliberal Economic Reforms on Remittance Flows from the United States to Mexico: 1965-2007

Regina Blair Lee , Politics A Two-Way Street to Development: Migration and Remittances in South America

Joshua Andrew Loehrer , Woodrow Wilson School An Uncertain Future: Bolivia’s Microfinance Industry under Evo Morales

Alma Esperanza Moedano , Woodrow Wilson School Educating Brazil’s Urban Poor: Potential of Tailored Early Childhood Development Programs

Sian Miranda Singh Ófaoláin , Woodrow Wilson School Transnational Migration and International Child Support Policy between the United States and Mexico

Margaret Lindsey Orr , Economics A Study of Foreign Direct Investment into Latin America in Two Parts: Political Determinants and Sensitivity Analysis

Alexandra Ripp , Spanish and Portuguese The Politics of the Avant-Garde: Daniel Veronese and the Teatro Joven

Jorge Santana , Economics Transitioning Toward Development: An Econometric Analysis of Electoral Reforms in Mexico

Elizabeth Hall Washburn , Spanish and Portuguese Boricua Blends: Coffee in Puerto Rican Cultural Expression

Class of 2007

Michael Alonso , Woodrow Wilson School Paths to Citizenship: An Analysis of the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study

Nina Cabell Belk , English The Courage to Speak: Voicing the Unversed Protaganists of “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man” and “ Un mundo para Julius ” by James Joyce and Alfredo Bryce Echenique

Amarilys Bernacet , French and Italian La Patrie Perdue: Exile and the Search for Self in French Caribbean Literature

Tomás Alfredo Blanco , Economics Buhoneros, Informality and Microlending in Caracas, Venezuala: Case Study of the Catia Buhonero Market and Microlending as a Solution for Buhoneros in Caracas

Robin Jeanne Campbell-Urban , Politics Transitions to Democracy, Military Autonomy, and the Prospects for Democratic Consolidation in Chile and Peru

Ana Gaivão Cordovil , Sociology Conflicting Perceptions: A Study of Brazilian Immigration and Identity in the United States

Julia Frances Freeland , Comparative Literature Exploration and Recognition: Octavio Paz in India

Alisha Caroline Holland , Woodrow Wilson School The Battle After the War: Mano Dura Policies and the Politics of Crime in El Salvador

Lauren Elizabeth Hooten , Art and Archaeology Fortification Design in the Spanish and Portuguese Empires: A Comparative Approach

Mariana Huh Kim , Sociology Informal Lives for an Informal People: The Battle of Bolivia's Indigenous

Antonio Ignacio Lacayo , Civil and Environmental Engineering Lessons from the Brazilian Ethanol Experience: The Case for Nicaragua

Camillie Landrón , Spanish and Portuguese Las Fronteras de la Ficción: Borges como Lector de Cervantes

Aiala Teresa Levy , History Spaces, Inhabitants, and Ideas: The Development of the Arts in the Buenos Aires Anarchist Movement, 1896-1910

Paul Sebastian Martin , Sociology Overcoming the Boundaries: On the Assimilation and Acculturation of Second-generation Hispanic Immigrants in the United States and Argentina

Silvio Pellas Martínez , Woodrow Wilson School “The Truth Shall Set You Free”: Religious Resistance to Totalitarian Regimes

Joseph John Ramírez , Anthropology Dancing Mexican in New York City: Folklorico’s (In)Formalities

Amelia Olga Rawls , Woodrow Wilson School Restricting U.S. Refugee and Asylum Admissions to Advance Foreign Policy Goals: Adverse Consequences and Recommendations for Change

Alexandra Nicole Rothman , Comparative Literature Reconstructing Loss: Exile and Creativity in Lolita and A Hora de Estrela

Nicole Danielle Scott , Anthropology Through the Lens of the Law: Locating Women in Argentine History

Michael Andrew Solis , Woodrow Wilson School Dilemmas of Democratization: Explaining the Variance between Human Rights Trends in Argentina and Brazil

David Wesley Stopher , History Martyrdom of the Maya

Class of 2006

Perla Amsili , Economics Unveiling the Shadow: A Study of Tariffs and Evasion in Brazil

Zinzi Diana Bailey , Woodrow Wilson School Escravos de Alma: Racial Hegemony, Political Opportunity and Afro-Brazilian Mobilization

Karen Darel Barajas , Woodrow Wilson School Entwining Immigration and National Security: The Re-Emergence of Nativism Post—9/11 and its Effects on Latino Immigrants

Erin Alison Blake , History Diplomats, Dictators, and Critical Science in a Peripheral Nation: The Development of Nuclear Technology in Argentina

Mónica Elizabeth Bravo Sánchez , Politics U.S. - Mexico Immigration

Krista Marie Brune , Spanish and Portuguese From Peñas to Pinochet: The Evolving Social and Political Roles of the Nueva Canción Chilena

Catherine Darcy Copeland , History Finding Their Voices: The Transformation of the Mapuche People Alongside Political Transformation in Chile

Lara DeSoto , Anthroplogy Chisme: The Powerful Role of Gossip in Small Communities

Morgan Arielle Galland , Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Questionable Conservation Success: The Alto Jurua Extractive Reserve as a Model for Human-Inclusive Federally Protected Forests in Brazil*

Marissa Renée Geannette , History Victory on the Field, Crisis of Humanity: Argentina Hosts the 1978 World Cup

Rebecca Louise Gidel , English Tracing it Twice: The Photographic Alice and Alejandra Pizarnik

Malvina Goldfeld , Woodrow Wilson School Bucking the Trend: Argentina’s Arabs, Jews and Muslims Engaging in an Era of Disengagement

Dawn Andrea Leaness , Politics Gender Roles in the Changing Latin American Political Arena

Awilda Méndez , Politics Mobilizing the Inferior Sex: Suffrage and Gender in Argentina

Brandon Robert Ricaurte , East Asian Studies A New Player Emerges: China’s Influence in Panama and Taiwan’s Dwindling Hopes to Maintain Diplomatic Relations

Sarah Elizabeth Schaffer , Woodrow Wilson School Enhancing UNHCR Operations through Partnership in Latin America: An Analysis of UNHCR Partnerships Targeting Colombian Refugee Women in Ecuador

Leon Claudio Skornicki , Politics Vote-Seeking: A Political Economic View on Latin American Populism

Brady Piñero Walkinshaw , Woodrow Wilson School Dropping out in Villa Nueva

Class of 2005

Adam Ben Abelson , Woodrow Wilson School The Fruits of War? Cultural Continuity vs. Localized Adaptation among Salvadoran Youth Gangs in the United States and El Salvador

Jessica Willis Aisenbrey , Comparative Literature Two Times June: A Translation and Commentary

Stephanie Louise Amann , Politics Student Mobilization in Chile, 1960-2005: The Ironies of Success Under Dictatorship

Nadjia Isaacs Bailey , Politics One Island, Two Worlds: A Critical Assessment of the Divergent Political Paths of Haiti and the Dominican Republic

Federico Carlos Baradello , Woodrow Wilson School Assessing the Impact of eGovernment Reform Processes on Chilean Democracy

Elizabeth Ann Black , History Cries for Justice: The Impact of Social Movements on the Demise of the Argentine Military Regime from 1976 to 1983

Christopher Barrett Browne , English Diasporic Voices: Writers of the Cuban Exile Consciousness

Ananya Chakravarti , Economics The Rise of the Private Security Industry in Brazil: 1985-2001

Timothy Winthrop Post Churchill , History U.S. Human Rights Policy and Pinochet’s Chile: 1976-1988

Amanda Rose Collazo , Sociology Ethnic and Cultural Differences in Quality of Life for Elders at the End of Life: A Comparison of Mexican Immigrants and Whites in the United States

Melissa Cristina del Aguila , Politics Women in Politics: A Representative Voice. Gender, Quotas, and Legislative Behavior in Argentina’s Chamber of Deputies

Erin Lindsay Dell, Woodrow Wilson School The Role of Uncertainty in Unmet Need for Family Planning: Evidence from Bolivia

Dylan Benjamin Fitz , Politics Hope, Resistance, and Lost Opportunities: Land Reform and Agricultural Policies in Brazil

Katherine Elizabeth Glenn , Woodrow Wilson School Ideological Cleansing: Genocide under the Argentine Process of National Reorganization, 1976-1983

Dana Johanna Graef , Ecology and Evolutionary Biology The Life of the Forgotten ( La Vida de los Olvidados ): The Impact of Development on Environment and Tradition in the Boruca Indigenous Community of Costa Rica

Mildred M. Harris , History Writing and Oppression: Examining Testimonial Literature Written about the Chilean and Argentine Dictatorships

Lauren Myrbreck Hittson , History The Evolution of the Rockefeller Foundation Through the Lens of Yellow Fever in Colombia

Erin Elizabeth Langley , History Remembering the 1954 Guatemalan Coup d’Etat on its Fiftieth Anniversary

Kristen Elizabeth Lanham , History An Examination of the Lives of Cuban Slaves: Viewed through the Lens of Diet

Christopher Neilson Lesser , Spanish and Portuguese José Martí: The Poetics and Politics of Translation

Connie Dianne Lewin , Politics Political Strategies of the Nicaraguan Women’s Movement 1979-1996

Uta Oberdörster , Ecology and Evolutionary Biology La filosofía de Baruch Spinoza en Borges*

Muhammad Rumi Oodally , Spanish and Portuguese Adiós, Companheiros ? Memory & Revolution in Sergio Ramírez and Fernando Gabeira

Mark Christopher Parrett , Politics Mexican Migrant Workers’ Remittances and the Global Money Transfer Marketplace

José Juan Pérez Meléndez , History Naming the Maroon: A Problem in Caribbean Histories and Cultures

Jessica Mary Reardon , Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Effects of Parasitic Diptera (Tachinidae) on Two Morphotypes of the Tortoise Beetle Chelymorpha alternans (Chrysomelidae)

Alina Rekhtman , Woodrow Wilson School Educating the Top: Trends and Practices in Chilean Volunteerism

Rocío Rosales , Sociology Cuerpo Vendido, Orgullo Mantenido : A Study of Cuban Jineteras and the Critiques Confronting Ethnographic Research

Danielle Marie Rowland , Politics Can Federalism Work? The Ability of Formal Institutions to Reduce Ethnic, Religious, and Regional Conflict

Daniel Isaac Siegfried , Politics Rethinking Power: Bargaining for a New Framework of Analysis

Sarah Whittemore Skinner , History Christopher Columbus’ Letters Announcing the New World: A Study of Early European Letters of Exploration and Discovery

Tom Saul Vogl , Economics Effects of Land Titling on Child Nutritional Status: Evidence from Lima, Peru

Ariel Elizabeth Wagner , Woodrow Wilson School Truth Commissions, Divided Societies, and the Elusive Search for Reconciliation: The Experiences of South Africa and Guatemala

Jessica Paulie Weber , Politics Popular Uprisings and Government Responsiveness in Bolivia and Ecuador

Emily Jean Woodman-Maynard , Spanish and Portuguese Logos, Silencio, Cuerpo: El Límite de la Palabra en la Poesía de Olga Orozco

Class of 2004

Cynthia Arocho , Sociology The Transforming Power of Conversion: A Nicaraguan Pentecostal Perspective

Annika Elaine Ashton , Woodrow Wilson School Playing Politics: U.S. Policy toward Cuba Since the End of the Cold War, 2004

Rachael Amy Bernard , History Expatriate Identities: Understanding Race and Self through the Works of Claude McKay, Marcus Garvey, and W.A. Domingo

Sandra Bruno , Economics The Daily Struggles of Day Laborers in New Jersey and New York: An Economic Study

Fernando Ribeiro Delgado , Woodrow Wilson School Breach of Contract: The Violence of Mutually Assured Exclusion in Salvador, Brazil

Adrienne Nealon Ellis , Spanish and Portuguese A Journey to the Other Side of the River: An Anthology of the Work of Alejandra Pizarnik

Mary Alexandria Fallon , Woodrow Wilson School Mounties and Mariachis: Domestic Institutions and Regional Integration in North America

Ana Inés García Zalisñak , Geosciences Coarse Woody Debris in Forests around the World, with Special Emphasis on the Amazon, and its Dependence on Above-Ground Live Biomass and Decomposition Rate

Matthew Saul Goldberg , Anthropology Health in a State of Scarcity: An Ethnography of Health Care among the Urban Poor in the Northeast of Brazil

Marcos Raymond Gonzalez Harsha , Economics Microfinance for Women's Empowerment? Case Study of Pro Mujer Bolivia

Noelle Duarte Grohmann , Politics From a Divided Past, a United Future? History, Textbooks and Democracy in Post-1990 Chile

Gabrielle Yvonne Ibañez-Vázquez , Politics A Prospect of Puerto Rican Sovereignty: Latino Growth and Modern American Pluralism

Kathryn Summers Kirkpatrick , History Fire in the Ashes: Truth, Justice, and Reconciliation in Chile and Guatemala

Elyse Gale Kovalsky , Woodrow Wilson School Failings of the Education Market: The Effects of Choice in the Chilean Voucher System

Yana Lantsberg , Woodrow Wilson School Of Greed and Governance: Post-Soviet Petroleum Policy

Robert Francis Lindsey, Jr. , Politics Reinterpreting Nicaraguan Democratization: The Long Transition, and its Problematic Aftermath

Lauren Marie Lister , Politics The Church's Influence on Women's Groups in Argentina and Chile

Martha Evelisse Mártir , History The El Salvador-Honduras Soccer War: Historical Patterns and Internal Mechanisms of OAS Settlement Procedures

Stephanie Renee Mash , Politics The Garinagu of Belize: How Individuals in an Ethnic Minority Relate Ethnic Identity to Political Identity

Vicente Piedrahita Uribe , Sociology Cali Pachanguero: The Centrality of Salsa in Cali, Colombia

Katrina Alisha Robinson , Spanish and Portuguese The Popular, Avant-Garde, and Caribbean Poetry of Nicolás Guillén: Orality, Self Acceptance and Mulatez

Molly Christina Spieczny , Sociology When Workers Take Over: Reclaimed Factories in Argentina

Agnieszka Maria Szalewicz , Spanish and Portuguese Machos y Maricones: Paradoxes of Masculine Hegemony in Guadalajara, Mexico

Hannah Lee Tappis , History Long Live the King & Death to Bad Government! The 1781 Comunero Movement in New Grenada

Juan Pablo Valdivieso , Woodrow Wilson School To Host or Not to Host? An Analysis of the Socio-Economic Effects of Hosting Major Sporting Events in Latin American Cities

Katherine Anne Wall , History "Those Who Serve Revolution Plow the Sea": Simón Bolívar's Unfulfilled Dream

James McCauley Walter , English The Poetics of Revolution: Five Female Voices from the Sandinista Struggle

Ellison Sylvina Ward , Religion Orishas in the Time of Castro: The Evolution of Santería in Twentieth-Century Cuba

Benjamin Joel Wukasch , Civil and Environmental Engineering On Appropriate Technology and Methodology for Water Resources in Rural Communities: A Case Study in Huanccochapi, Peru with the NGO, ITDG

Class of 2003

Kristina Alemany , Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering The Development of the Cuban Children's Program: A Reflection of the View of Cuban Exiles as Temporary Visitors before Bay of Pigs*

Christina Marie Alvarez , Sociology The United Farm Workers & the Migrant Ministry: Redefining the Catholic Left

Amanda Emily Blaine , Comparative Literature Translating Chaos: Selected Micro-Fictions of Ana María Shua and Eduardo Berti

Amaya Isabel Capellán , Economics Assessing the Economic Costs of Violence in Colombia

Crystal Jasmine Davenport-Harris , Spanish and Portuguese Race and Revolution in Cuba: Literary Expressions of the Afro-Cuban Voice

Deanna Bernice Ford , Economics Mexican Immigration to the United States: Evaluating Wage and Education within the Framework of Social Networks and Family Roles

Rommel Antonio Gallo , Woodrow Wilson School Is Affirmative Action Appropriate for Brazil? Lessons from the United States

Jonathan Mark Gebhardt , History Interpreting New Worlds: Columbus, Linguistic Barriers, and the Discovery of the Americas

Russell Lawrence Goldman , Politics Social Movement Theory, AIDS, and the Collapse of the Brazilian Gay Movement

Christian Gómez, Jr ., Politics Social Reform Under Authoritarian Auspices: The Political Economy of Chilean Social Security Privatization

Daniel H. Hantman , Spanish and Portuguese Maquinaciones Narrativas: Plot, Desire, and the Machine in Adolfo Bioy Casares's La invención de Morel

Alexandra Pfeifer Leader , English Para Creer en la Poesía: Poetic Images of Nicanor Parra

Gary Leggett , School of Architecture Cities of Silver and Gold: Colonial Potosí and Modern Cajamarca

Vannesa del Carmen Martinez , Politics Viva Cuba Libre: A Comparative Study of Revolution in Cuba, 1953-1966

Kathrin Conlin McWatters , Woodrow Wilson School Filling the Void: Non-Governmental Responses to Urban Poverty in Lima, Peru

André Lamartin Montes , Woodrow Wilson School Law & Disorder: The Brazilian Criminal Justice System on Trial

Anna Maria Nuñez , Politics What Went Right? Innovative Policy to Fight AIDS in Brazil

Daniel Matthew Pastor , Politics Bound by the Past: The Protracted Chilean Transition to Democracy

Rogelio Pier-Martínez IV , Economics Determinants of Continued Mexican Migration to the United States

Kristen Nicole Smith , Anthropology Community of Margins: An Ethnography of Albany Park through the Eyes of Its Youth

Alexandra E. Snyder , History The Untreated: Health and Health Care in Guatemala, 1944 to 2002

Sylvia Suárez , Anthropology The Great Green Hope: Community-Based Ecotourism in Ecuador as a New Development Paradigm

Allen Kinsey Taylor , Germanic Languages and Cultures A Revolution in Photographic Seeing: Russia, Germany, Mexico, 1917-1933

Class of 2002

Luciana Aranha Barreto , Woodrow Wilson School Musical Groups and Social Capital: Alternative Development Strategies in Brazil

Vanessa Ann Bartram , Woodrow Wilson School Microfinance in Transition Economies: A Prospectus for Cuba

Richard Michael Brand , Woodrow Wilson School Democracy in Peril: The Rise of Hugo Chavez and Venezuela's Fifth Republic Movement

Kristin Marie Darr , Comparative Literature Un Irónico Método: Borges's Literary Response to Peronism

Elizabeth Noble Davies , Woodrow Wilson School The Indigenous Movement in Ecuador: Diversity and Democratic Pluralism

Erika Christy De La Parra , Art and Archaeology Mudéjar Architecture — Its Evolution, Fragmentation, and Transfer to the New Worl d

Loren Lucille Dealy , Sociology A City on the Edge: The Impacts of Immigration Policy, the War on Drugs and NAFTA on the City of El Paso, Texas

Christina Brennan Frank , History El Antídoto Político: The Role of Non-State Actors in the Chilean Transition to Democracy

Georgia Garthwaite , History Image-Making and Image-Breaking: The Creation and Suppression of Symbolism and Political Imagery in Cuba, Argentina, and Chile

Edgar González , Politics Second Stage Economic Reforms in Latin America: Chile, Argentina, and Brazil

Brian Christopher Greene , History The Alliance for Progress and Chile: Measuring the Commitment of the United States to Social and Economic Development

Ana Cristina Hey-Colón , Comparative Literature Daring Ladies: Redefining Gender in Selective Renaissance and Baroque Plays

Fernando Daniel Hidalgo , Politics Reforming Social Policy in Latin America: The Politics of Health Care and Education Reform in Brazil and Chile

Larissa Kennedy Kelly , History The Prodigious Feats of the Lieutenant Nun: Catalina de Erauso's Remarkable Journey from Convent to Battlefield to Celebrity

Lisa Fran Lazarus , Woodrow Wilson School Fulfilling the Promise of Preschool: Early Childhood Education in the Abbott Districts

Robert Lipshitz , Mathematics Revolutionary Educaton: Mathematics, Physics and Computer Science Education at the University of Havana

Andra Olivia Maciuceanu , Woodrow Wilson School Structural Constraints Overdetermined: States and Multinational Automotive Corporations in Brazil

Mónica Mercedes Millán , Politics The Development of the Rule of Law in Costa Rican Democracy

Miguel Ángel Nieves Gerena , Sociology Change for the Better? An Analysis of the Socioeconomic Effects of Neoliberalism in Latin America

Danielle Kristina Núñez , Woodrow Wilson School City of the Dead: A Portrait of Ayacucho, Peru

Amelia Cristina O'Neill Vega , History The Chilean Left 1973-1988: Unidad Popular, Exile, and Resistance

Brian O'Neill , History Crisis of Identity: Visions of Culture in the Chicano Movement

Jill Janaína de Medeiros Otto , Comparative Literature Hairy Tales

Ernesto L. Rivera , Politics El Movimiento Chicano: Extant or Extinct?

Gustavo Rivera, Jr. , Anthropology Mobius Identity: An Anthropological Study of Identity in a Brazilian Squatter Settlement

Matthew Palmer Rubach , Woodrow Wilson School International Migration and Public Health: Tuberculosis Along the U.S.-Mexico Border

María Eugenia Shepard-Hogshire , History Revolution in Chains: The Independence Movement in Puerto Rico (1968-1982)

Carrie Susan Staub , History From Myth to Conquest: Reevaluating the Campaign for the Desert in 19th Century Argentina

Edward Graves Tompkins , Politics Speaking to the Silent Epidemic: HIV/AIDS Leadership, Policy, and Empowerment in South Africa and Brazil

Class of 2001

Elizabeth Mary Balthrop , Woodrow Wilson School Monetary Union in MERCOSUR: Argentina, Brazil, and the Future of Deeper Macroeconomic Integration

Adam Ryder Benz , Politics Faces of Revolution: Minorities and the Construction of Socialist National Identity

Miriam Liliana Boyer , Sociology Public Intellectuals and the State in Twentieth Century Mexico 

Pamela Claudia Castillo , Psychology Gender Stereotypes in Education and the Correlation between Teacher Gender and the Perceived Academic Achievement and Career Potential of Students in Ecuador and the United States

Sarah Elizabeth Curtin , Politics Toward Free and Fair Elections: The Federal Electoral Institute in Mexico

Christopher Cleveland Cutler , History The Emergence of Argentine Culture from the Proceso Dictatorship

Kathleen Bliss Daffan , Woodrow Wilson School Defining and Defending Human Dignity: Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights in the Inter-American System

Amanda Merritt Fulmer , Politics Law and Politics in Transitional Justice: Lessons from Chile and the Pinochet Case

Francisco Javier Garay , Woodrow Wilson School Progresa: An Innovative Approach to Poverty Reflecting Mexico’s Changing Attitude toward Welfare

Vicky Marie Garza , Politics The New Political Economy in Latin America: How Globalization Affects Economic Progress & Influences Political Reform

Dane Erin Huckelbridge , History Interpretations of Autonomy: Re-examining the Puerto Rican Response to the U.S. Invasion of 1898

Megan Elizabeth Hughes , Psychology Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder as a Result of Human Rights Violations in Chile

Joselle Marie Lamoutte Navas , Comparative Literature The Structure of Mystery in the Invention of a New Novel: Robbe-Grillet and Saer

Ashley Lefrak , Comparative Literature Selected Short Stories by Elena Garro: "The Colored Week" & "We’re on the Run, Lola" (translation and commentary)

Jesus Lemus , Molecular Biology La Pachanga del Pancho Pantera*

Ella Elizabeth McPherson , Woodrow Wilson School Giving Credit Where Credit is Due: Increasing the Outreach of Microfinance in Fox’s Mexico

Erika Yvette Medina , Sociology Democratization as a Starting Point: Assessing the Impact of Brazilian Health Sector Reform on Regional Health Care Inequalities, 1980-1998

Jessica Renate Margaret Moffett , Politics The Drawback of Progressive Governance: The Tension between Civil Society and Economic Liberalization in Chile

Alysia Megan Rafal , Romance Languages and Literatures Reading El Obsceno Pájaro de la Noche : A Study of Creative and Critical Interpretations of a "Boom" Novel

Susan Craft Schaefer , Romance Languages and Literatures The Drama of Disappearance: Antigone Furiosa and Argentina's Dirty War

Beth Anne Schmierer , Politics The Silent Survival of Liberation Theology in Latin America

Marshall Dulles Sebring , History The Press in Argentina: Self-Censorship and Complicity under the Military Junta

Lisa Marie Sotelo , Politics The Maquiladora Industry: Manufacturing Inequality

Peter Van Zandt Turk , Politics The Decline of Student Activism and Participation in a New Democracy: The Case of Chile

Melissa Judith Vélez , Psychology Ethnic Identity and the College Experience: Implications for Intergroup Contact, Perceptions and Self-Presentation

Rebecca Beryl Weitz , Woodrow Wilson School When the Company Leaves: The Politics & Economics of Post-Privatization in Argentina

Hallie Madeleine Welch , Politics Occupational Segregation and the Male-Female Wage Gap in Chile: Evidence from the CASEN Survey