Senior Thesis Information and Recent Theses
Senior thesis talks are given the Friday at the start of the reading period. Theses are submitted to the senior thesis advisor (STA) a week before this, and the final theses versions posted on the physics web site (electronic version required) a week after the talks.
Previous Theses
| Student | Research Topic | Advisor |
| 2009 | ||
| Matthew J. Ball | "Computations on Water Waves " | Prof. Strauss |
| Alexander W. Cerjan | "Search for High Redshift Clusters" | Prof. Dell'Antonio |
| Jackson Travis Del | "Confined DNA Translocation Across Periodic Nanopit Arrays" | Prof. Stein |
| Stuart B. Elston | "Finite-Difference Time-Domain Simulations of Metallic Nanoparticles in Whispering Gallery Mode Resonators" | Prof. Xu |
| Anne M. Fabricant | "Search for a W' Boson in the Top-Quark Decay Channel" | Prof. Narain |
| Amandeep Gill | "Black Holes Near and Far" | Prof. Dell’Antonio |
| Anuj Girdhar | "MgO-based Magnetic Tunnel Junctions: Superparamagnetism and Micromagnetics" | Prof. Xiao |
| Miriam R. Klein | "he Search for Charged Massive Stable Particles at DØ: A dE/dx Study of p20 Data" | Prof. Cutts |
| Nikolas C. Logan | "Measurement of the Electromagnetic Torque in Rotating DIII-D Plasmas" | Prof. Dell'Antonio |
| Amy E. Lowitz | "Photometric Redshifts for Galaxies in a Lensing Survey" | Prof. Dell'Antonio |
| Teodor Mihai Moldovan | "Automatic Detection of Gravitational Lensing in Telescope Images Using Machine Learning Techniques" | Prof. Dell'Antonio |
| Samuel A. Ocko | "Search for Broken Translational Symmetry in the Heisenberg Antiferromagnet on the Kagome Lattice" | Prof. Marston |
| Christine G. Pappas | "Superconducting Proximity Effect and Superconductor-Insulator Transitions in Superconducting Films on Nanohoneycomb Substrates" | Prof. Valles |
| Reshma Ramachandran | "Static Conformations of Branched DNA in Nanopits" | Prof. Stein |
| Ruslan S. Skomorohov | "Calculating Magnification from Galaxy Numbers and Magnitudes" | Prof. Dell'Antonio |
| Aaron J. Weinstein | "Energy harvesting from nanofluidic pores" | Prof. Stein |
| 2008 | ||
| Edward B. Baker | "Singularities in the Presence of M2-Branes" | Prof. Lowe |
| Alan I. Gabel | "Electrostatic Interactions of DNA in Nanofluidic Channels" | Prof. Stein |
| Gregory V. Hebert | "Construction of a scanning tunneling microscope for imaging biomolecules: noise reduction issues" | Prof. Ling |
| John S. Keller | "A Search for Charged Massive Stable Particles at D0" | Prof. Cutts |
| Michael Mak | "Microrehology of F-actin Networks across Isotropic-Nematic Phase Transitions" | Prof. Tang |
| Angus J. McMullen | "Construction of a scanning tunneling microscope for imaging biomolecules: system and performance" | Prof. Ling |
| Ryan P. Murphy | "Fabrication and Study of Nano-meter Scaled NIS Tunnel Junctions" | Prof. Valles |
| Taylor H. Newton | "Lie Algebras and N=4 Yang-Mills Theory" | Prof. Spradlin |
| Andrew C. Potter | "Interferometry with Anyons" | Prof. Feldman |
| Michael H. Schwarz | "Monte Carlo Simulations of Thin Nematic Liquid Crystal Samples with Quasicrystalline, Fivefold Symmetric Boundary Conditions" | Prof. Pelcovits |
| 2007 | ||
| Patrick Courville | Describing Black Holes with String Theory | Prof. Lowe |
| Dan Finn-Foley | Effects of Quarter-Space Experiments on Crater Formation | Prof. Schultz |
| Stefan Janiszewski | Gravitational Lens Magnification and Mass Maps | Prof. Dell’Antonio |
| Li Wei Liu | A Quantitative Comparison between Magentic Force Microscopy and Scanning Magneto-Resistance Microsopy | Prof. Xiao |
| Nathaniel Safron | Characterization of the lowfield Behavior of Magnetic Tunnel Junction Devices via Novel Magnetotransport measurement Techniques | Prof. Xiao |
| Jonathan Schwartz | An investigation of the influence of the coil design on NMR signal sensitivity | Prof. Mitrovic |
| Lick-Kong Tam | Near-Surface Swimming Caulobacter Tracked with Nanometer Sensitivity | Prof. Tang |
| Scott Wolin | Jet Energy Calibrations for the CMS Missing Tranverse Energy Trigger | Prof. Landsberg |
| Chin Lin Wong | Implementation of the Pyramid Star Identification Technique | Prof. Tucker | 2006 |
| Emily Conover | Nonequilibrium Statistical Mechanics of a Geophysical Jet | Prof. Marston |
| Alison Errico | Defects in Liquid Crystals | Prof. Pelcovits |
| Chonlagarn (kai) Iamsumang | Scintillation Counter Radiation Damage Testing with Cosmic Rays | Prof. Partridge |
| Worasom (Fern) Kundhikanjana | NMR Study of Fe Sb2 | Prof. Mitrovic |
| Ari Le | Solutions of the Schwinger-Dyson Equations in Zero and More Dimensions | Prof. Guralnik |
| Stefan Liechenauer | Nonperturbative Effects in the Dynamics of Fermi Liquids | Prof. Jevicki |
| Benjamin Machta | Attractor Array Dynamics | Prof. Guralnik, Prof. Anderson |
| John David Murray | Black Holes, Topological Strings, AdS/CFT, and Anomalies: New Methods in Black Hole Entropy Counting | Prof. Lowe |
| Eric Perlmutter | The Average Null Energy Condition and Vector Perturbations in Randall-Sundrum Brane- Worlds | Prof. Lowe |
| Etienne D. Reyes | Classifying n-Back EEG Data Using Mutual Information and Naïve Bayes Classifier | Prof. Neskovic |
| Adam Straub | Low Temperature NMR Probe Design | Prof. Mitrovic |
| Jennifer Swearingen | Basic String Theory | Prof. Jevicki |
| 2005 | ||
| Matthew Carriuolo | Statistics of chaos | B. Marston |
| Alexis Crow | Near-Surface Diffusion of DNA Molecules | K. Breuer |
| Susanna Finn | Analyzing Simulations for the Balloon-borne Large Aperture Sub-millimeter Telescope | G. Tucker |
| Demetrious Harrington | Construction and Calibration of Laser Tweezers Apparatus Using a Fast Camera | J. Tang |
| Rohit Hedge | A Tully-Fisher relation for the Great Wall of Galaxies | I. Dell'Antonio |
| Christopher Mendillo | Seeing Correction and Deblending in the Deep Lens Survey | I. Dell'Antonio |
| Robert E.Morris | Cosmic Strings as Remnants of Symmetry Breaking | G. Gurlanik |
| Niravun Pavenayotin | Thin Metal Films on Nanopore Arrays | J. Valles, Jr. |
| William D.Rice | High frequency sound propagation in water | H. Maris |
| Nicholas Schade | Glavanotaxis vs. Magnetotaxis in Paramecium | J. Valles, Jr. |
| Daniel Silverman | Study of Liquid Xenon Detector for WIMP Dark Matter | R. Gaitskell |
| Susan Tolwinski | Quantum Gravity via Matrix Models and Bubbling AdS Spaces | A. Jevicki |
| Yong WookKim | Large Deviations and Importance Sampling in Rare Events (Monte Carlo Theory) | P. Dupuis |
| 2004 | ||
| Adam Avakian | Matrix Models and 2-dimensional Gravity | Antal Jevicki |
| Ben Mares | The Geometry of Lie Groups | Antal Jevicki |
| Kenli Okada | AdS Stability and Brane World Perturbations | D. Lowe |
| Erno Palla | Ultrasonic Studies Of Type II Superconductors: Niobium Sample | C. Elbaum |
| Dylan Spaulding | The Accuracy of Photometric and Morphological Traits in Simulated Galaxy Populations | I. Dell'Antonio |
| Ethan Thompson | String/Gauge Correspondences and the Wilson Loop | C. Tan |
| 2003 | ||
| Amandine Cagnioncle | Melt Migration and Interaction with the Mantle at Subduction Zones (spring 2003) | Marc Parmentier |
| Andres Morey | Quantum Mechanics and Determinism: An Investigation into Gerard 't Hooft's Recent Theories(spring 2003) | Antal Jevicki |
| Rachel Rosen | Supersymmetries and Giant Gravitons(spring 2003) | Antal Jevicki |
| Ellen Syracuse | Determining Crustal Parameters Along the FLED (Florida to Edmonton Alberta Seismic Stations) Array(spring 2003) | Karen Fischer |
| Tyler Wellman | An Introduction to Supersymmetry in Quantum Mechanical Systems(spring 2003) | Antal Jevicki |
| Sam Wurzel | Prospects for Studying Negative Gravitaxis in Paramecia Using Magnetic Field Gradient Levitation(spring 2003) | James Valles |
| 2002 | ||
| Arthur Coviello | A Noncommutative Rosetta Stone for Undergrads | Antal Jevicki |
| Jasmine Foo | The Millimeter-wave Bolometric Interferometer (MBI): Theory and Simulation | G. Tucker |
| Tiferet Levine | Symmetry Principles in Physics: Applications to Conformal Symmetries and CT-AdS Correspondence | Antal Jevicki |
| Jesse Thaler | Model of Black Hole Formation in 2+1 Dimensions | Antal Jevicki |
| 2001 | ||
| James Battat | A Fast Calculation of the CMB Temperature Correlation Function with NNCorr | G. Tucker |
| Chris Irwin | Stellar Classification with a CCD Spectrometer | G. Tucker |
| Benjamin Leung | Thermal Inflation | D. Lowe |
| Seth Mrozek | Mechanical and Thermal Modeling of the BLAST Cryostat | G. Tucker |
| Jason Young | Monte Carlo Simulations of the IKKT Model | D. Lowe |
| Pre-2001 | ||
| David Baghdadi | Investigations of Phase Transitions in Superheated Metallic Crystals | X. S. Ling |
| Joshua Bloustine | Shapefinders: A New Diagnostic Tool for Large-Scale Structure | R. Brandenberger |
| Barrett Bready | Cardiac Chaos: Application of Nonlinear Analysis to Electrocardiogram Data | J. Valles, Jr. |
| Aditi Chandra | Nondestructive Evaluation: An Application of SQUID Microscopy | Charles Elbaum |
| Owen Fink | Design, Construction, and Calibration of a Low Temperature, Low Pressure Thermocouple Pressure Gauge | George Seidel |
| Miriam Friedel | An Investigation of SU(2n) Quantum Antiferromagnetic Ground States in One and Two Dimensions | Brad Marston |
| Margaret Gardel | The Magnetic and Metal-insulator Phase Transitions in La(l -x)CaxMnO(3) Near x=0.50 | G. Xiao |
| James Gerber | A Study of Large Scale Structure in a Cosmic String Toy Model | R. Brandenberger |
| Suvi Gezari | A Study of Supersonic Turbulence Probed by Water Vapor Masers in Five Galactic Sources | G. Tucker |
| Mark Henle | The Melting of Vortex Matter in Type II Superconductors | Sean Ling |
| Courtney Lannert | A Massive Stable Particle Search with the DO Detector | D. Cutts |
| Lawrence Lin | Minkowski Functionals and Cold Dark Matter Models | Robert Brandenberger |
| Matt Pillsbury | Supersymmetry and the Calogero Model | Antal Jevicki |
| Erin Quinn | Using capacitance to measure the active area of ultra-thin silver films | James Valles |
| Jeremy Sage | Assessment of DO Detector Electronics | R. Partridge |
| Wei MunWang | Perturbative Calculations in Quantum Field Theory Using Sinc Functions | G. Guralnik |
| Sarah Wasserman | Magnetic Manipulations: Understanding Cleavage Plane Determination in the South African, clawed frog, Xenopus laevis | James Valles |
