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Student Honors Theses

Student Honors Theses

2023

Stoddard, Colby, "Thermodynamics of Bulk Glass Formers," advisor: Prof. Hillary Smith

2022

Wang, Jiaming, "X-ray Spectroscopy of the O Supergiant ζ Puppis Indicates Surprising Variation in the Wind Mass-loss Rate on Years Timescales," advisor: Prof. David Cohen

2021

Mebratu, Matiwos, "DeepCIP: Probing Compensated Isocurvature Perturbations in the CMB Using Deep Neural Nets," advisor: Prof. Tristan Smith

2020

Chalifour, Matthieu, "Measurement of Angular Correlation of Two Protons in Quasielastic Neutrino-Nucleus Cross-Section," advisors: Prof. Catherine Crouch, Prof. Kevin McFarland

2018

Shrock, Jaron, "Compression and Acceleration of Taylor State Plasmas on SSX," advisor: Prof. Michael Brown

Wentworth-Nice, Prairie, "Structured Randomness: Jamming of Soft Disks Within Lattices of Pinned Particles," advisor: Prof. Amy Graves

Zhang, Zechen, "A Theory for Allosteric Temperature-Sensitive Transcription Factors," advisors: Prof. Catherine Crouch, Dr. Rob Phillips

2017

Hudson, Emily, "Developing Pulse Shape Discrimination Techniques to Identify Alpha Particles, Neutrons, and Gamma Rays," advisor: Prof. Carol Guess

2016

Parks, Holden, "Magnetic Field and Ion Density Correlation Analysis of SSX Plasma," advisor: Prof. Michael R. Brown

Rock, Ariel, "Physical Interpretations of Permutation Entropy Scaling Analyses in Turbulent Fluids," advisor: Prof. Michael R. Brown

2015

Weck, Peter J., "The Ordinal Dynamics of Turbulence: Permutation Entropy and Complexity in Turbulent Plasmas," advisor: Prof. Michael R. Brown

2014

Kim, Tae, "Characterizing Functional Reconstitution of Influenza A M2 Protein into Guvs," advisors:  Profs. Kathleen Howard, Catherine H. Crouch, Carl H. Grossman

Regan, Margaret H., "Assembly Processes in Chromonic Liquid Crystals:  IR-806 and Pinacyanol Acetate," advisor:  Prof. Peter J. Collings

2013

Agarwala, Atish, "Geometry Induced Non-Linear Optical Properties of Elliptical Negative Index Metamaterials," advisors:  Profs. Carl H. Grossman, Dani Keshav

Nieser, Kenny, "Kinetics of Self-Assembly and Disassembly in Chromonic Liquid Crystals:  Benzopurpurin 4B and IR-806," advisor:  Prof. Peter J. Collings

2012

Zhang, Xingyu, "Diffuse Optical Tomography:  Breast Imager Studies," advisor:  Prof. Frank A. Moscatelli

2011

Bernhard, Jonah, "Lorentz Violation in Solar-Neutrino Oscillations," advisor: Prof. Matthew Mewes

Labe, Kevin, "Lorentz-Violating Models of Neutrino Oscillations," advisor: Prof. Matthew Mewes

MacArthur, James, "Laboratory Astrophysics: Spectral Analysis of Photoionized Neon," advisor: Prof. David H. Cohen

Mills, Elizabeth, "Analysis of IR-806 Aggregation and Chromonic Liquid Crystal Properties," advisor: Prof. Peter J. Collings

Zimmerman, Andrew, "Lorentz Violation in Degenerate Resonant Cavities," advisor: Prof. Matthew Mewes

2010

Cubuk, Ekin Dogus, "An Information-Theoretic Perspective on the Foundations of Quantum Mechanics," advisor:  Prof. John R. Boccio

Good, Benjamin H., "Modularity and Community Detection in Complex Networks," advisors:  Profs. John R. Boccio, Aaron Clauset

Schoenholtz, Samuel, "An Investigation Into Jamming Percolation Using Renormalization Group Methods," advisors:  Profs. Andrea Liu, Amy L. Bug

Smith, Erik, "Experiments in Light Scattering:  Examining Aqueous Suspensions of Graphene Oxide and the Aggregation Behavior of Bordeaux Dye," advisor:  Prof. Peter J. Collings

2009

Cosgriff, Margaret, "Antibunching and Excitation Lifetimes in CdSe Nanocrystals," advisor:  Prof. Carl H. Grossman

McKitterick, Chris, "Aggregation of Benzopurpurin 4B," advisor:  Prof. Peter J. Collings

Mohr, Robert, "Excitation Energy Dependence of Flourescence Intermittency in Core/Shell CdSe/ZnS Nanocrystals," advisor:  Prof. Catherine H. Crouch

2008

Duchon, Eric, "Creation and Alteration of Two Dimensional MOTs," advisor:  Prof. Frank A. Moscatelli

Hoyer, Stephan, "Quantum Random Walk Search on Satisfiability Problems," advisor:  Prof. David A. Meyer

Rosenberg, Michael J., "Spectral and Hydrodynamic Modeling of X-Ray Photoionization Experiments," advisor:  Prof. David H. Cohen

2007

Barry, Jennifer, "Monte Carlo Methods for Sampling Classical and Quantum Particles," advisor:  Prof. Amy L. Bug

Chaplin, Vernon H., "High Time Resolution Spectroscopic Measurements of Electron Temperature in the SSX Plasma," advisors:  Profs. David H. Cohen, Michael R. Brown, Chris D. Cothran

Deyle, Ethan R., "LDW Small-Molecule Organic Luminophores for OLED and OPV Device Fabrication," advisor:  Prof. Catherine H. Crouch

Eccles, Jacob D., "Ferroelectricity in Amphiphilic Monolayers," advisor:  Prof. Peter J. Collings

Erb-Satullo, Nathaniel, "Aggregation Properties of the Chromonic Liquid Crystal Benzopurpurin 4B," advisor:  Prof. Peter J. Collings

Forman, Daniel, "Imaging of Ultracold Atomic Populations in Magneto-optical Traps," advisor:  Prof. Frank A. Moscatelli

Hang, George, "Finding the Energy Spectrum of the Quantum Hindered Rotor by the Lanczos Method," advisor:  Prof. Amy L. Bug

Horwitz, Jason, "Flow Measurements on Single and Merging Spheromaks at SSX," advisor:  Prof. Michael R. Brown

Peterson, Daniel J., "Genuine Fortuitousness, Relational Blockworld, Realism, and Time," advisor:  Prof. John R. Boccio

Tomasik, Michelle, "The Aggregation and Liquid Crystal Properties of Bordeaux Dye," advisor:  Prof. Peter J. Collings

2006

Cronin, Timothy W., "Path Integral Monte Carlo Simulation of Positronium in Cylindrical Pore Spaces," advisor:  Prof. Amy L. Bug

Dhital, Saurav, "Pulsed Accretion in the Young Binary UZ Tauri East," advisor:  Prof. Eric L. N. Jensen

Fung, Jerome, "High Resolution Flow and Ion Temperature Measurements with Ion Doppler Spectroscopy at SSX," advisor:  Prof. Michael R. Brown

Gersh, Jessica, "Determining the Phase Diagram and Aggregate Size of a Chromonic Liquid Crystal," advisor:  Prof. Peter J. Collings

Setlow, Cortland M., "Measurement Theories in Quantum Mechanics," advisor:  Prof. John R. Boccio

Skemer, Andrew, "Circumstellar Disk Modeling with Bayesian Statistics and Marginal Probabilities," advisor:  Prof. Eric L. N. Jensen

Wolfson, Zachary, "Path Integral Monte Carlo Simulation of Positronium Within a Dielectric Spherical Cavity," advisor:  Prof. Amy L. Bug

2005

Aronzon, Dina, "The Optical and Physical Properties of a Photosensitive Nematic Liquid Crystal," advisor:  Prof. Peter J. Collings

Higby-Naquin, Cameron, "Surface Gravity as a Diagnostic of Stellar Youth," advisor:  Prof. Eric L. N. Jensen

Horowitz, Viva R., "Fundamental Measurements on an Aggregated Dye Liquid Crystal," advisor:  Prof. Peter J. Collings

Murchadha, Aongus O., "Ion Temperature and Flow Velocity Measurements on SSX-FRC," advisor:  Prof. Michael R. Brown

Shupe, Nathan C., "Modeling Studies of Photoionization Experiments Driven by Z-pinch X-rays," advisor:  Prof. David H. Cohen

Willis, Lauren J., "Measuring Weak Lensing of a Multiply Imaged Quasar," advisor:  Prof. Christopher R. Burns

Yue, Dan, "The Pervasive Maxwell Demon," advisor:  Prof. Michael R. Brown

2004

de Messieres, Genevieve, "XMM-Newton X-Ray Spectroscopy of the B2 Bright Giant Canis Majoris," advisor:  Prof. David H. Cohen

Miller, Matthew, "Applications of Photospheric Spot Temperature Models to the Study of Stellar Angular Momentum Evolution in the Orion Nebula Cluster," advisors:  Profs. Keivan G. Stassun, Eric L. N. Jensen

2003

Falk, Abram, "Dynamics of Field-Reversed-Configuration in SSX," advisor:  Prof. Michael R. Brown

Fefferman, Andrew, "Formation and Stability of Spheromak/Field Reversed Configuration (FRC) Hybrids in SSX-FRC," advisor:  Prof. Michael R. Brown

Kramer, Roban Hultman, "Modeling O-Star X-Ray Emission-Line Profiles:  Fitting a Parameterized, Spherically-Symmetric Wind Model to Chandra Spectra," advisor:  Prof. David H. Cohen

Landremann, Matt, "The Three-Dimensional Structure of Magnetic Reconnection in SSX," advisor:  Prof. Michael R. Brown

Loeb, Michael, "A Study of Langmuir Monolayers to Find a Template for Two-Dimensional Porphyrin Aggregation," advisor:  Prof. Peter J. Collings

Muluneh, Melaku, "Positronium:  A Theoretical Lifetime Calculation and a Path Integral Monte Carlo Simulation in an Electrical Field," advisor:  Prof. Amy L. Bug

Romanowsky, Mark, "Thermal Fluctuation in the Isotropic Phase of Nematic Liquid Crystals," advisor:  Prof. Peter J. Collings

Smith, Robin, "Photon Echo and Single Molecule Fluorescence Measurements of Organic Dyes in Thin Polymer Films," advisor:  Prof. Carl H. Grossman

Tonnesen, Stephanie, "X-ray Emission Line Profiles from the Magnetically Confined Wind Shock Model," advisor:  Prof. David H. Cohen

2002

Brown, Joanna, "Modeling Density Enhanced Shells in the Circumstellar Envelope of the Carbo-Rich AGB Star IRC+10216," advisors:  Profs. David H. Cohen, Tom Millar

Cikoski, Rebecca, "Analysis of Photomultiplier Spectra of the LHCb CP Violation Experiment," advisors:  Profs. Chris D. Cothran, Lubna Rana, Stephan Eisenhardt

Larrimore, Lisa, "Path Integral Monte Carlo Simulations of Positronium in Argon," advisor:  Prof. Amy L. Bug

McFarland, Robert Nicholas, "A Simple Model of Decoherence in the Measurement of a Spin-1/2 Particle," advisor:  Prof. John R. Boccio

Ouellette, Nicholas, "Quantum Computation," advisor:  Prof. John R. Boccio

Setter, Kevin, "On the Statistical Mechanics of Quantum Geometry," advisor:  Prof. Seth Major

2001

Auerbach, David, "Ion Temperature Measurements in SSPX," advisor:  Prof. Michael R. Brown

Gray, Tim, "Density Studies on SSX," advisor:  Prof. Michael R. Brown

Reighard, Amy B., "The β-effect:  Turbulent Conductivity Measurements in Spherical Liquid Sodium Flows," advisor:  Prof. Michael R. Brown

Schlossberg, David, "Energetic Particle Studies on SSX," advisor:  Prof. Michael R. Brown

Seifert, Michael, "Angle and Volume Studies in Quantized Space," advisor:  Prof. Seth Major

2000

Biller, Beth, "On the Enigma of H20 Maser Linewidths," advisors:  Profs. Vladimir Strelnitski, Frank A. Moscatelli, Eric L.N. Jensen

Krich, Jacob J., "Light Scattering Studies of the Correlation Length and Chirality of fluctuations in the Isotropic Phase of Nematic and Chiral Nematic Liquid Crystals," advisor:  Prof. Peter J. Collings

Lukin, Vyacheslav S., "Modeling SSX Spheromak Plasmas:  Internal Physics from External Measurements," advisor:  Prof. Michael R. Brown

Mills, Thalia, "Study of the Aggregation of an Octahedral Complex of Cobalt (II) on a DNA Template and the Self-Aggregation of a Perylenediimide Dye," advisor:  Prof. Peter J. Collings

Pomerance, Laura, "The Use of Resonance Light Scattering to Determine the Size, Shape and Aggregate Number of Aggregated Tetrakis (4-sulfonatophenyl) porphine," advisor:  Prof. Peter J. Collings

1999

Hall, Katherine J., "Quantifying Brightness and Radii of Known Objects Observed with the Hα Southern Sky Survey," advisor:  Prof. John E. Gaustad

Huff, Benjamin P., "Investigating the Property of Chirality in Chiral Nematic Liquid Crystal Compounds," advisor:  Prof. Peter J. Collings

Lifton, Joshua H., "Direct Measurement of Polodial Current Flux in the Helicity Injected Torus II," advisors:  Profs. Brian A. Nelson, Michael
R. Brown

Luh, Walter J., "Measurements of Magnetic Field Convection in Spherical Liquid Sodium Flows," advisor:  Prof. Michael R. Brown

Pyle, Jonathan, "Modeling the Photoisomerization of Retinal," advisor:  Prof. Daniel P. Aalberts

1998

Fecko, Christopher J., "Doppler-free Polarization Spectroscopy," advisor:  Prof. Carl H. Grossman

Hoffman, Joan, "Interferometric Studies of a Partially Ionized Laser-Ablated Lithium Plasma," advisors:  Profs. Thomas Donnelly, Frank A. Moscatelli

Kornack, Thomas W., "Magnetic Recomnnection Studies on SSX," advisor:  Prof. Michael R. Brown

McMenomy, Mary, "H2 as a Probe for Guest Sites in Zeolite Na13X in Inelastic Neutron Scattering Spectra," advisor:  Prof. Amy L. Bug

Murphy, Michael James, "Critical Phenomenon and the Invaded Cluster Renormalization Group," advisor:  Prof. John R. Bocio

Rosolowsky, Erik W., "The Spectral Correlation Function--A New Tool for Analyzing Spectral Line Maps," advisor:  Prof. John E. Gaustad

1997

Geddes, Cameron, "Spheromak Equilibrium Studies on SSX," advisor:  Prof. Michael R. Brown

Schwan, Daniel, "Characterization of Aggregate Size and Resonance Light Scattering for H2TPPS4-4 Aggregating Porphyrin," advisor:  Prof. Peter J. Collings

Schwartz, Brian, "N2 Formation via the Reaction of N2 with Electronically Excited O2:  A Matrix Isolation Study," advisor:  Prof. Thomas Donnelly