A Selection of Cool Senior Theses

This month, many seniors will breathe long sighs of relief as they finally turn in their alternately adored and loathed theses. Listed below is a small sample of some of the fascinating and unusual works of scholarship that this year's seniors have produced.

Bryce J. Gilfillian '12

Concentration: History

Thesis: Unmasking the American Man: Superheroes, Security, and Alternative Depictions of Masculinity in the American Postwar Era, 1945-1954.

Who knew that Superman and Lois Lane only became an item in the later decades of the comic or that Batman was once depicted as possibly having a homosexual relationship with Robin? Gilfillian uses the adventures of Superman, Batman, and Captain America to investigate how masculinity was explored in comic books of the era. In his research (which, yes, involves reading hundreds of comic books and drawing skeptical glances from Widener librarians), Gilfillian challenges the notion that superheroes were heterosexual, Christian "defenders of women and American virtue" and sheds light on the nuances of how manhood was conceived during the post-war years.

Maxwell L. Meyer '12

Concentration: Economics, East Asian Studies Secondary

Thesis: China's Authenticity Problem: Rethinking Anti-Counterfeiting Strategies in Low Enforcement, High Technology Environments.

Meyer's journey began in Xiu Shui Jie, a giant fake goods market near the heart of Beijing. He had recently given in and bought a set of Dr. Dre headphones for around $350 and was surprised to encounter an excellent identical, but fake, pair in the market, which he bought for the equivalent of $20. Since then, Max has investigated how to persuade individuals to buy the real good when the counterfeit looks and works just as well. Through conversations with government officials, newfound friendships with store owners, and savvy uses of Chinese Twitter, Max draws upon novel research to make several timely proposals for luxury goods companies doing business in China.

Jeremy Patashnik '12

Concentration: Economics

Thesis: Free Riding: Group-Size Effects in a Public-Goods-Game Model of Bicycle Racing

If Lance Armstrong were to talk to Patashnik, he might be happy to discover he's been participating in a public goods game while rocking the Tour de France. In his thesis, Patashnik breaks new ground by mixing game theory and professional sports, applying the economic concept of "freeriding" (i.e. reaping the benefits of others' cooperation without cooperating oneself) to competitive cycling. Freeriding can occur in cycling when riders choose to enjoy the efforts of riders at the front—who do more work by blocking wind—without spending significant time at the front themselves. This dynamic occurs both within the main group of cyclists (the "peleton") and the small group of riders that often break off during a race (the "breakaway".) After many hours of reading race descriptions and logging data points from the Tour de France and the Giro d'Italia, Patashnik has uncovered insights into the game theory of cycling, including a greater likelihood of freeriding within the main pack of  cyclers than within breakaways.

Colin Teo '12

Concentration: Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Film Studies Secondary

Thesis: Sculpting the Flower—A Single Gene Duplication Underlies Complex Patterns of Functional Evolution in the Columbine Flower (Aquilegia).

Some people stop to smell the roses. Teo pauses to investigate the genetic basis of flower development. For the past year, Teo has been pursuing the question of "what makes flowers." Most labs studying flowers use the Thale Cress—the plant equivalent of the lab rat—to look at plant genomes. However, as Teo notes, "if you really want to know about the tree of life, you can't just look at one plant." At the lab where he works, Teo has been growing mutant versions of the Columbine flower through a process called gene silencing, which involves "tricking" the flower to cut up relevant parts of its own RNA by introducing a virus. He's discovered interactions between genes in this species that have never been seen before. And, all of this occurs in an underground growth chamber with minutely controlled lighting, humidity, and temperature.

Caroline N. Vloka '12

Concentration: Human Evolutionary Biology

Thesis: The gastrocnemius as a factor for human bipedalism

The creators of "Chicken Run" probably didn't realize they were onto significant scientific insights on the evolution of human bipedalism (bipedalism: that we walk on two legs). Fortunately, Vloka did. The HEB concentrator has been throwing guinea fowl (according to Caroline, a fairly "athletic chicken" with a human-like calf muscle structure) onto treadmills to investigate how we've evolved to move. She's uncovered information about how the calf muscle's angle changes as we increase speed, as well as the crucial role of the Achilles tendon in running. Her research also bolsters the claim of five-toe-shoe advocates: humans have evolved to run with the front of the feet striking ground first, a movement the admittedly "not fashion forward" shoes facilitate.