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The Effect Of Chronic Aerobic Exercise On Working Memory: A Study On Young Adults, Alexandria J. Morris

Honors Theses

Physical activity is essential for optimal health. Cognitive function is a major part of that, and can be evaluated through working memory (WM). This thesis examines the impact of physical activity on WM in young adult college students. It reviews existing research on exercise and WM, highlights gaps in the literature focused on this demographic, and explores the importance of chronic and moderate to high-intensity exercise to WM. There is existing research that examines the correlation of WM and physical activity for both acute and chronic exercise, as well as for children, adults, and older adults. Acute aerobic exercise shows …

Post-Dobbs: Observed Maternal And Infant Health Outcomes, Erin P. Yenawine

Honors Theses

This research investigates how the variance in abortion legislation and access across the United States has impacted infant and maternal health. This builds upon previous research identifying a relationship between abortion policy and quantity of births, (Myers et al., 2025; Bell et al., 2025) abortion policy and infant and maternal health pre-Dobbs (Gardner, 2024), and an emerging body examining the health outcomes post-Dobbs for mothers and infants (Gemmill et al., 2025; Gressler & Lewis, 2025). Scholars indicate that primary contributors to increases in infant mortality may be the continuation of pregnancies with congenital abnormalities and compounded barriers of access to …

“Who Are We?”: Exploring Adolescent Identity And Community Through Collaborative Mural Art, Rachel E. Stacy

Honors Theses

This thesis explores how participation in a high school mural club influences students’ sense of personal identity and community. By creating and leading a mural club, I guided students in designing and painting murals around their school and extending this work into the local community, all focused on how students defined themselves within the context of the school’s motto: “A Star is Rising”. I used qualitative methods including surveys, observational notes, artist statements, and visual documentation to examine and analyze how students experienced identity and collaboration throughout the process. The findings show that the creation of these murals provided students …

Creative Nonfiction Essays, Colby S. Langley

Honors Theses

To write about the present with any authority requires a keen eye for the past. To write from our lives into meaningful creative nonfiction requires a firm understanding that experience is the composite of life experience blending into the current moment. The writing is then drawn irreversibly towards emotion: indulgent and oppressive. The extremity of emotion dictates the difficulty of transcribing the experience onto the page, and violence is a source of both extreme emotion and experience. It is important to note that I am primarily considering personal violence for this essay, while societal and institutional violence have their own …

A Narrative Of The Plague Doctor And How Its Historical Context Translates To The Modern View Of The Plague Doctor, Callie P. Johnston

Honors Theses

The Plague Doctor was once a historical figure who practiced medicine primarily on those infected with the bubonic plague. The plague doctor, as a historical figure and physician, has been transformed in modern culture and media. Originally perceived as a harbinger of both hope and death, the Plague Doctor has undergone a historical transformation from a masked physician to a more stylized character that appears in modern media, digital art, toys, costumes, video games, and popular culture. This thesis examines the evolution of the Plague Doctor from its historical role as a plague physician to its current iconography as a …

Evaluating The Effects Of Urbanization On Meiofauna Biodiversity In Chattanooga’S Lentic Ecosystems Through Gis Applications, Keyle M. Bryant

Honors Theses

Urbanization is a leading driver of biodiversity loss in freshwater ecosystems, yet its effects on meiofauna—microscopic invertebrates that serve as key bioindicators of ecosystem health—remain poorly understood in lentic environments. This study evaluated the effects of urbanization on meiofaunal biodiversity in ten lentic waterbodies across Hamilton County, Chattanooga, Tennessee, by integrating environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding, in-situ abiotic measurements, and Geographic Information Systems (GIS)-based land use analysis. Water samples were collected between January and April 2023 and processed using 18S rRNA amplicon sequencing to assess biodiversity as richness (amplicon sequence variants or ASVs, phylogenetic diversity or PD, and community composition). Land …

How Do Community Gardens Contribute To A Thriving National Park City: A Case Study Of Chattanooga, Tennessee, Ansley B. Barry

Honors Theses

On April 3, 2025, Chattanooga, Tennessee became the first National Park City (NPC) in North America. With a long, industrial history, Chattanooga has made quite the pivot from being widely renowned for its low air quality and particulate pollution to being recognized as the Best Outdoor City in the US by Outdoor magazine. The goals emphasized by the National Park City campaign are creating a city-wide common interest of community-led sustainability efforts. While the initiative highlights many important initiatives to make the city more sustainable and resilient, community gardens are noticeably left out of the conversation. This paper argues that …

Dissociation, Anxiety, And The Vestibular System: Understanding The Impacts Of Anxiety, Panic, And Dissociation On The Vestibular System, Julian Achata

Honors Theses

Previous research indicates that vestibular dysfunction is associated with symptoms of anxiety, panic, and dissociation. The present study will investigate anxiety, panic, and dissociation symptoms and identify the connections between reported symptom severity and vestibular functionality. This study will focus on three different hypotheses: 1) higher levels of dissociation will correlate with increased vestibular disruption; 2) higher levels of anxiety will correlate with increased vestibular disruption; 3) higher levels of panic will correlate with increased vestibular disruption. Six virtually administered self-report measurements were used to identify the variables: Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), Depersonalization Derealization Inventory (DDI), Dissociation Experiences Scale-II (DES-II), …

Red, White, And Broke: A Call For Accountability In Government, Mary A. Scott

Honors Theses

This study examines the scale of waste, fraud, and abuse in U.S. federal spending. The purpose of this research is to clarify how fiscal management in the federal government is intended to operate versus how it actually functions. Using a combination of conceptual analysis, existing literature, case-based evidence, and data analysis, findings suggest that the persistence of oversight failures arises from weak implementation, limited enforcement authority of oversight bodies, and an emphasis on recovery rather than prevention practices. This study contributes to the broader discussion of public finance by providing an accessible framework to understand why the foundational federal principle …

Environmental Awareness And Community Sentiments In A Superfund Site: A Study Of South Chattanooga, Mia Dial

Honors Theses

The concept of environmental injustice refers to the disproportionate exposure of marginalized communities to environmental hazards, often resulting from the placement of industrial sites, waste facilities, or other environmentally harmful infrastructure in areas with limited political and economic power. Alton Park, a historically underserved neighborhood in Chattanooga, Tennessee, faces elevated environmental risks due to its proximity to the South Chattanooga Lead Superfund Site and legacy industrial contamination. This study used semi-structured individual interviews to assess community awareness, perceptions, and behaviors related to environmental hazards in Alton Park. Residents generally reported some awareness of the Superfund site, though knowledge was often …

Resilience By Living With The Land And Community: A Case Study Of A Local Food Forest, Olivia Beck

Honors Theses

Imagine a public space where food, leisure, outdoor activity, and community engagement occur in one place, all in an urban forest ecosystem. For many, this is a hopeful vision of the future, and that is exactly what the idea of an urban food forest provides. In agroecology, a food forest or forest garden consists of planting diverse edible plants and mimicking the patterns of natural ecosystems. The intricate planning and design ensure the forest is self-sustaining, much like a natural forest, making it very resilient once established. However, they face many challenges and take time to grow and develop to …

Emotional Detachment In A Second Language: Exploring Emotional Expression In Bilingual Adults, Daniela Salas Lopez

Honors Theses

This qualitative study explored how bilingual and multilingual adults experience emotional detachment when using a second language and how language shapes emotional expression. This study aimed to examine how bilingual individuals personally experience these emotional differences in everyday life. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with six bilingual or multilingual adults from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds. Data were analyzed using thematic analysis. Findings revealed five major themes: emotional detachment in a second language, reduced emotional intensity and meaning, increased cognitive effort and emotional fatigue, authenticity and emotional comfort in the first language, and identity and personality shifts across languages. Participants consistently …

Preliminary Vascular Plant Checklist Of The City Of Chattanooga, Matthew J. Scott

Honors Theses

The City of Chattanooga, Tennessee was designated as a National Park City in April 2025 by the National Park City Foundation. Yet, there has not been a comprehensive vascular flora compiled for the city, though there have been extensive collections and observations made of the plant biodiversity in the area from the late 1800s onward. The goal of this project was to examine both the existing herbarium collections and public observation records from iNaturalist to compile a preliminary vascular plant checklist for Chattanooga, and to include conservation and ecological data for the species currently documented to provide a holistic review …

Growing Change: A Gis Spatial Analysis To Plan Urban Gardens In Chattanooga, Carson A. Chalk

Honors Theses

Food insecurity and limited access to fresh nutritious food in Chattanooga is a prevalent issue, primarily among lower socioeconomic households, and can put strain on overall well-being. This study aimed to identify suitable vacant parcels in Chattanooga where urban gardens could be developed using a GIS-based spatial analysis. Spatial data involving vacant parcels, slope, zoning, and proximity to grocery stores was cross referenced with socioeconomic data focused on poverty rates, vehicle ownership, and mean household income to identify the most suitable sites in areas of greatest need. Sites identified as suitable through GIS were then visited to verify their suitability. …

Unraveling The Modernist Grid: An Exploration Of Femininity And Containment In Design History, Riley Hayes

Honors Theses

This paper examines the Swiss grid as both a foundational tool of modernist graphic design and a cultural system embedded with ideological assumptions about order, neutrality, and authority. While the Swiss design tradition is widely celebrated for its clarity, rationality, and universality, this study argues that such principles are not neutral but historically situated, shaping how postwar Western visual culture organizes information, bodies, and value systems. Focusing on the circulation of Swiss design principles through editorial and advertising media, the paper situates the grid as a structuring logic that extends beyond layout into the framing of identity and gender. This …

A Meta-Analysis Of Endometrial Cancer Metabolites As Potential Non-Invasive Biomarkers, Makenna K. Johnson

Honors Theses

Endometrial Cancer (EC) is the most prevalent gynecological cancer in the United States and causes tens of thousands of deaths. Despite its massive negative impact in developed countries, there currently is no reliable screening tool used to diagnose women. Due to this urgent need for minimally invasive and precise techniques to diagnose this malignancy, the metabolomics field has been at the forefront of current research. An untargeted mass-spectrometry approach is used by many researchers to form an initial hypothesis as to which metabolites are key in identifying EC cases. However, there are sometimes inconsistencies between studies. A meta-analysis approach examines …

Glass Vault - A Novella, Christopher M. Young

Honors Theses

This book focuses on several themes, but the core topics I wanted to discuss were family, mental health, and grief. One of the initial premises I wanted to pursue was the creation of a perfect storm in which all enjoyment came at the cost of a painful reality. Amber is a woman who has gone through several devastating events, struggling to accept the reality she finds herself in. By virtue of the incredibly unlikely scenario of finding and falling in love with a rich man, she already has a difficult time believing that the things around her are real sometimes. …

Exploring The Alignment Between Medical School Outcomes With Residency Competencies: A Modified Delphi Study, Sally A. Santen, Luan Lawson, Jose A. Negrete Manriquez, Marjorie Westerveld, Laurah Turner, Anita Wilson, Phd, Yoon Soo Park, Eric S. Holmboe, Michael S. Ryan, Medical School Outcomes Milestone Study Group

JeffMD Academic Affairs

PURPOSE: Facilitation of competency-based medical education adoption would benefit from alignment between medical school (undergraduate medical education [UME]) and residency (graduate medical education [GME]) assessments. This study explores the strength of an a priori alignment of medical school assessments with residency competency domains to guide programmatic assessment and research.

METHOD: In fall 2023, the authors (US faculty with UME and GME expertise) used a 2-phase Delphi consensus approach (9 participants in phase 1 and 16 in phase 2) to independently map medical school assessments to the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education competency domains (0, no association; 1, some or …

Domain-Specific Concussion Knowledge And Reporting In United States Major League Rugby Players, Julie Stamm, Katherine Hunzinger, Owen Sheehy, Christine Baugh

Department of Exercise Science Faculty Papers

Previous research indicates high concussion knowledge is not associated with better concussion reporting, with research examining the relationship between reporting and global concussion knowledge. Concussion knowledge has not yet been investigated in United States Major League Rugby (MLR) players. This study evaluated domain-specific concussion knowledge, concussion history, and reporting behaviors among active MLR players. In a cross-sectional design, 207 MLR athletes (age 26.6 ± 3.4 years) completed a survey assessing concussion history, knowledge, and nondisclosure reasons. While in the MLR, 24% reported an undisclosed concussion, with nondisclosure reasons related to a lack of concussion knowledge, a desire to continue playing, …

Techno-Imagination: Elevating Creativity Through Xr And Ai, Christopher Spitzer

Creativity and Change Leadership Graduate Student Master's Projects

Techno-Imagination: Elevating Creativity Through XR and AI explores the history of creativity and computing technology, supported by research and academic literature, and looks at the possibilities of a convergence between the two. In parallel, a brief biographical story of the author shares how a passion for creativity emerged, along with a growing interest in science and technology—specifically extended reality—which ultimately came together in the creation of this master’s project. The project also highlights how the Creative Problem Solving (CPS) process was used alongside AI bots and twenty research-based creative thinking skills in developing the business model canvas. Finally, the outcome …

An Investigation Of The Roles Aging, Gender And Age-Related Hearing Loss Play In Emotional Prosody Recognition, Giavanna Yowell

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

Emotional prosody recognition is crucial for social interactions but is influenced by aging, gender, and age-related hearing loss (Lambrecht et al., 2012; Oerlemans et al., 2014; Palermo et al., 2013). No past studies have looked at all of these factors collectively. To address this shortcoming, the current study explored the relationships between aging, hearing loss and gender differences in emotional prosody recognition. The ability to recognize emotions through facial expressions was also included as a comparative measure. One hundred fifteen individuals (42 men and 73 women), ages 50 and older (M = 60.39, SD = 8.12), completed a hearing handicap …

Bridging The Gap: Can Targeted Intervention With Future Educators Strengthen Instructional Practices Related To Academic Achievement And Motivation?, Natalie Marissa Virgil

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

Although Indiana’s graduation rates have improved, many students continue to experience challenges related to academic achievement and motivation post-pandemic. Research suggests that students’ motivation and persistence are shaped in part by how educators frame success, failure, and effort (Weiner, 2010). Teachers also play a central role in fostering students’ psychological needs for competence, autonomy, and relatedness, as well as shaping task value beliefs and perceived ability. Despite this, future educators often receive limited explicit training on how to apply these motivation and achievement-based theories within everyday classroom practice. The current study examined whether a targeted, theory-based intervention can strengthen teacher …

Pediatric Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome: An Integrative Review, Esther Maclean

Senior Honors Theses

Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome, otherwise known as (POTS) is a neurological condition that affects the autonomic nervous system. POTS often presents in adolescent women. This review looks at research surrounding possible treatment modalities including pharmacological and non-pharmacological interventions. The goal of this review is to increase healthcare provider knowledge surrounding POTS and increase the speed and efficiency at which POTS is diagnosed and treated in adolescents. This will be done by surveying the current research for best treatment methods, common comorbidities, and reasoning for delayed diagnosis. Common symptoms seen in POTS include syncope and pre-syncope, dizziness, fatigue, and decreased cognitive …

Is God An Illusion? Comparing Parasocial Relationships And Relationships With God, Parker J. Gungor

Senior Honors Theses

This thesis seeks to distinguish the parasocial relationship (PSR) from a relationship with God. A PSR is a one-sided relationship with a parasocial figure (PSF) such as a celebrity that gives the illusion of reciprocity. Since neither God nor the PSF interact with people in the same manner as standard reciprocal relationships, several key psychological theories are examined to highlight the similarities and differences between the relationships. A research gap is identified regarding the reciprocity of a relationship with God, so a study is proposed to compare the perceived responsiveness between a PSF and God. In comparing the perceived responsiveness …

The Effects Of Private Equity Ownership Of Acute Care Hospitals On Patient Experience, Abigail M. Huffman

Theses and Dissertations

In 10 years, private-equity firms' share of hospitals has grown from 2-3% to 8%.  Using data from two sources: the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) patient surveys and the Private Equity Stakeholder Project (PESP), I demonstrate a causal effect of private-equity ownership on patient satisfaction using difference-in-difference methods.

Conceptualizing A Responsive Design Pedagogy To Support Teachers' Responsiveness To Students' Mathematical Ideas Through Making, Denish Ogweno Akuom

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

This study develops Responsive Design Pedagogy (RDP), a conceptual and analytic model of teacher responsiveness in design-based environments, to account for how responsiveness emerges through interactions among students, tools, and tasks. Although responsiveness has been widely studied in mathematics education, limited attention has been given to responsiveness within mathematical design activity and to how teachers attend to the multiple modes through which students express their mathematical ideas. Addressing these gaps, this qualitative study examined one teacher’s enactment of responsiveness in a Learning-by-Design classroom where students designed and used 3D-printed mathematical tools. Data sources included classroom video, student design artifacts, teacher …

Understanding Roma Oppression In Europe Through Humantarian Forensic Analysis, Christal L. Quinn

Department of Anthropology: Theses and Student Research

This thesis examines the marginalization of Roma people in Europe, and how humanitarian forensic practices may help Roma communities in their quest for justice and recognition. The study draws exclusively on secondary information to examine the social, political, and legal issues affecting the Roma communities, who have endured centuries of institutional discrimination, marginalization, and violence. This thesis identifies ways in which systematic oppression continues to limit Roma communities’ access to education, housing, healthcare, and legal protection through a review of relevant literature and applicable theoretical frameworks. The study also examines the relevance of forensic science, particularly its humanitarian applications, in …

City, Janina Butz

Theses and Dissertations

Janina Butz observes the improvised support structures holding New York City together at its edges. Looking at the found, cheap materials, spray painted, rusty, drilled, sawed, and haphazardly welded together on the sidewalk. The hard clashes of cheap material and expensive real estate lead Butz to draw a bigger picture of the fraud seams our society is tied together with.

In Spite Of And Because, Katherine Raudenbush

Theses and Dissertations

Photography collects in the home, in frames, photo albums, lockets, held up by magnets on the fridge, propped up on the desk. This thesis and accompanying photography and textile work addresses this accumulation of story and family connection, specifically multigenerational relationships between mothers and daughters.

Ephemeral System, Shibo Chan

Theses and Dissertations

Ephemeral System examines systems, feedback, repetition, and material fragility through a kinetic wax sculpture repeatedly dragged across a wooden ramp. Drawing from cybernetics, absurdist waiting, and personal mourning, the work explores how bodies and systems wear themselves down through continuous operation.