College Honors Program
The College Honors Program brings together academically accomplished and highly motivated students to pursue multidisciplinary studies in the natural sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities. This highly selective and challenging program is composed of sophomores, juniors, and seniors from any major, and incorporates special seminars, an honors colloquium and a thesis.
The College Honors Program, established in 1962, is one of the oldest programs providing distinctive educational opportunities at Holy Cross culminating in the senior honors thesis, and the intellectual excitement of a multidisciplinary classroom, where students from all majors address significant matters with faculty who are experts in integrative teaching and scholarship.
Theses from 2026
Eyes on Solidarity: The U.S. Valorization of Poland and the Re-Imagining of Polish-American Identity in the Reagan Era, Emily Arlene Addona
Regulation of Quiescence and ProliferativeCapacity in Canine Lung Mesenchymal Stromal Cells by Extracellular MatrixStiffness, Kara Battaglia
The Right to Identity: Identity for those Born in Clandestine Detentions, Jacqueline Bazazi
The Gorgon and the Goddess: Constructing Sacred Identity through Apotropaic Imagery, Caroline Boardman
Madness and Silence in Blood Meridian and The Brothers Karamazov, Leo Bubb
Guilty Until Proven Innocent: Stories of the Unfulfilled Promise of the American Criminal Justice System, Abigail Clark
Strategic Silence: The Greek Left's Avoidance of the 1922 Asia Minor Catastrophe During the Refugee Crisis, 2015–2019, Harry Courts
Fieldnotes, Fiction, and Filipina Beauty: An Anthropological Inquiry Into Aesthetics, Claudia Ericson
Educational Formation in a Fragmented Modern Age, Ana Lucía Fernández del Castillo
Conscientiousness and Collegiate Athletes: An Item Response Theory Analysis, Tyler Hall
Shoreless, Indefinite as God: Apocalypse, Eschatology, and America in Herman Melville's Moby-Dick, Anna Howie
Effects of Formula 1 on Casino Gambling Revenue, Jaden Kirkwood
Identity and Intervention: United States' Foreign Policy Toward the Dominican Republic, Eileen Ledesma
Reimagining Incarceration: Scandinavian-Inspired Policy Innovation in Pennsylvania and California, Isabel M. Mallory
La Mob in Motion: An Ethnography of Leftist Organizing in Massachusetts and Strasbourg, Audrey E. McConnell
Geometric Community Detection in a Higher Education Hiring Network, Oluwadamilola Oguntuyo
Discovered a Woman: The Experience of Lament in Greek Tragedy, Tessa Patti
Eco-Consciousness in the Worlds of Elizabeth Gaskell and Charlotte Brontë, Katherine Quinn
The Obstacles for Long-Distance Legally Blind Runners, William Schutte
Decolonizing the Home: Anti-racist parenting in Asian American families and its effects on children's mental health, Danielle Angela R. Soriano
Consonance, Dissonance, and the Brain: Directions in Modern Concert Music, Julianna F. Stratton
Encapsulating Entirety: The Gender Tricolon in Virgil’s Bucolics, Isabel Sullivan
The Government Girl’s Secrets: Judith Coplon, the FBI, and the Boundaries of National Security, Stefanie Szawerda
The Honduran Bono 10,000 Program: A Triple Difference Analysis, John Zimmermann
Theses from 2025
Pathos and Power: Gendered Rhetoric in Ciceronian Rome and the 21st-Century U.S., Alexandra Berardelli
I Know A Place We Can Go: The Spatiality of Lesbian Subjectivity and the Revival of Lesbian Spaces, Bailey Burke
Vacationing in the City: The Local Impacts of Contemporary Tourism in Three European Cities, Julia Clarke
Examining the Effects of Symbiotic State and Environmental Pollution on Wound Healing in Coral, Jonathan de Montagnac
Inside the Mad Mind: Medical Ethics in 19th Century Fiction, Danielle Dentremont
Scarcity and Economic Decision Making, Jonathan Hofmann
Balancing Acts: Exploring Need Conflict in College Students' Pursuit of Autonomy, Competence, and Relatedness, Kate Millard
Recovering the Lost Art of Medicine: A Role for Ignatian Spirituality, Cecilia Motherway
Using Motivation Science to Understand and Overcome Common Psychological Barriers to Non-Native Language Learning in Beginner and Intermediate College Courses, Ahana Nagarkatti
Consumer Willingness to Pay For Allergy Safe Foods, Julia Posillico
Amplifications and Disruptions of the Impostor Phenomenon (IP) In High-Achieving Women, Anya Reichelsdorfer
Achieving Fairness in Zoning Laws with Machine Learning, William Schimitsch
Defining the Enemy Within: Examining the Case for a Federal Mechanism to Designate Domestic Terrorist Organizations in the United States, Evelyn Schneider
You Have the Right to Not Remain Silent: The Intersection Between Prisons, Civic Engagement, and Social Justice, Claire Wolf
Theses from 2024
Accessing Pyrido[1,2-α]pyrimidines through Click Chemistry, Omar Afifi
The Making of Modern Pop Genre, George Caldwell
Moving Towards Inclusive Perceptions of Disability: A Case Study of Holy Cross Students’ Community Engagement Experience with L’Arche, Catherine Cannamela
Latin in Video Game Music: the Persisting Importance of Classics in Video Gaming, Sophie Cassarino
Organismal Effects of Tire Dust Exposure on Nematostella vectensis, Hannah Cavanaugh-Gouvea
Model Minorities or No-No Boys? Urban Politics, Crime, and Education Activism in Asian American Seattle, 1970-1989, Adam S. Cooper
A Study of Operating Frequency of Light of a Semiconductor Laser in an Extended Optical Cavity System, Kieran Corcoran
Effect of Feedback on Cognitive Control in Athletes and Non-athletes, Lauren Drillock
Youth Interest in Reusable Menstrual Hygiene Products: An Opportunity for Improving Menstruation Management, Makenna R. Eccles
Experimental Realization of the Pulse Sequencing Method for Measuring Charge Transfer Collision Cross Sections, Elia Fisher
Synthetic Studies of Cyclocurcumin, Ayden Fleming
“The Prince of Darkness”: The Genesis of Anti-Masonic Excitement in New York’s Burned-Over District, Robert Janes
From Relocation to Higher Education: An Empirical Analysis of Japanese American College Attainment Post-Internment, Caitlin Kawamura
(Un)Spicing the American Melting Pot: The Commodification of Cultural Appetites, Seduction of Tropicalization, and Reclamation of the Latina Body in the Literature of Magical Feminism, Jannette Kazlauskas
Le japonisme au 19ème siècle en France/Japonisme in 19th Century France, Maya Krzywda
“Neither Here nor There”: Formal Alterity in Vietnamese American Narratives from 1997-Present, Anna Lee
Broadway Theatre and the COVID-19 Pandemic: How Pre-Shutdown Longevity Impacted Production Success, Emmeline A. Lignowski
Streaming’s Sonic Revolution — The Impact of Streaming Services on the Music Industry: Evidence from Spotify, Nicholas Lupone
The Fear of too Much Justice? Limiting the Equal Protection Clause in the Post-Civil Rights Era, Liam Martin
Investigating the function and evolution of two putative de novo evolved genes essential for Drosophila melanogaster fertility, Kerry McDermott
She Has Green Eyes & Trauma: Problematic Depictions of Mental Illness in Young Adult Novels, Diane G. McDonough
Stability or Opportunity? A Cross-Regional Analysis of Elections in Hegemonic Authoritarian Regimes, Aidan McGahey
Lightness and Exactitude in Andrea Palladio's Redentore, Audrey McGrail
Building Loyalty: Hezbollah’s Hybrid Nature of Social Services & Military Warfare in an Unstable Lebanon, Rea Nassif
Title IX on the Hill, Riley Peck
Belonging on the Hill: BIPOC Student Experiences with DEI Initiatives at Holy Cross, Jailanny Pena
Rhetorical Punishment: The U.S. Incarceration System, Shanil Perez Lantigua
Violence on Stage and in the Streets: Women Reflect on the Troubles in 1980’s Northern Irish Theatre, Natalia Powers
Electrochemical Analysis of Self-Assembled Monolayers of Thiols on Gold, Emma Robinson
Breakin’ Down Flow State: An Analysis of The Flow State Within Breakdancing, James Rogus
Scaling of red sea urchin (Mesocentrotus fransiscanus) spines, Sarah Synan
Immigrant Narratives: Exploring the Discrepancies Between Better Lives, Meaningful Lives, Happiness, and Meaning, Deysi Lupe Tirado Rosillo
Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA) to Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA): More than a New Acronym?, Catherine Yackira
Theses from 2023
Machiavelli on Necessity: Expansion, Founding, and Renewal, Kevin Akalski
Constructing the Social Self: Painting with Data, Brooke Bailey
How Catholic are Milton’s Angels? An Analysis of Angelic Substance and Hierarchy in Paradise Lost in the Light of Catholic Angelology, Christian Alexander Barkman
Body Stigma and Food Insecurity: How the Cultural Attitude Towards Weight Amplifies Hunger and Perpetuates Disordered Eating Pathology, Emily Mason Bouzan
The Creation and Removal of Iron and Manganese Oxides on Terracotta Surfaces, Charles Cassidy
“Tell Your People I’m Coming to Your Funeral”: Older Adult Relationships as Contextualized by the Assisted Living Setting, Olivia Curnen
Limitation and Creativity: A Rock Album Inspired by Mathematical Constraints, Mark Czerwinski
Reinvest in US: Reimagine the Role of Police in the U.S., Jamil Davis
Brotherly Nations? Russia, Ukraine, and a Crisis of Identity, Teresa J. Esquivel
Rhythm and Verse: Reimagining the Massachusetts K-12 English Language Arts Curriculum, Brianna Fisher
Industrial Policy and Innovation in the 21st Century: Policy Lessons for US Strategic Industries from the East Asian Tigers, Riley F. Flint
Respecting a Person’s Dignity: Kantian Approaches to Morality, Carina Gregori Asadourian
HIV/AIDS: Science and Society. The Needs of AIDS Service Organizations and the Potential of APOBEC3G, Tianci Guan
The Influence of Surface Residues on the Structure and Activity of a Salt-Dependent Halophilic Enzyme, Michelle K. Haigbea
Perpetrators of the Holocaust in a Social Psychological Context: Contrasting Motivations, Amanda Hickey
The Trojan War on Roman Walls, Rebecca R. Kaczmarek
Classical Influences on Anti-Federalism in Late18th-Century America: An Analysis of References to The Roman Republic, “Cato,” and Caesar in the Anti-Federalist Papers, Anastasia Kaliabakos
Framing the American Abortion Debate: A Comparative and Longitudinal Study of Pro-Life and Pro-Choice Framing Techniques, Melanie Lytle
The Rise, the Resurgence, and Resilience of the Left in Latin America, Maria Valentina Maza Izarra
In the Shadow of Cyril of Alexandria: An Ecumenical Treatment of the Chalcedonian Schism, Christopher McCormack
Dog Days are Here: Canine LMSCs as a Novel Model System, Patrick Molluso
From Carbon Dioxide to Methane: Reframing the Fight Against Climate Change, Margaret O'Leary
Forging a Catholic Modernity: American Catholic Reactions to Anticlericalism in Mexico and Spain: 1920-1945, Evan Poellinger