Digital Commons Network^™

From In To Out, Jaeyeon Shin

Masters Theses

In contemporary Korean society, where uniform ideals and social pressure often dominate, individuality—especially emotional individuality—can be difficult to maintain. This loss of personal agency has real consequences: mental and physical health challenges, including eating disorders, are on the rise.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), around 3 percent of the global population is affected by such disorders—roughly 1.55 million people in South Korea—despite the country having the lowest obesity rate among OECD nations. The increase, particularly among women in their teens to thirties, reflects the emotional toll of conforming to rigid societal standards.

Architecture is not merely a backdrop …

Parallel Worlds, Mary J. Connell

Masters Theses

When I start a painting, I’m never sure how the painting process is going to go or how the painting will be resolved. I don’t plan things out or make sketches in preparation for the paintings. Each decision is intuitive. I typically have a question, a response from a prior painting. As a result, all the paintings in the studio become related as they respond to each other.

Doubt and curiosity steady my hand, balancing one another out. Through hard work, time, mistakes and the occasional success, a painting gradually emerges from the surface. Sometimes it is lost again for …

Gust, Stroll, Veil, Jungeun Park

Masters Theses

I witness the unsettling and chaotic moments of everyday life:

blood clots in fried eggs, a dead rat on my porch, mites crawling on our skin . . .

These quiet tragedies exist with almost brutal indifference!

We eat, digest, excrete. We menstruate. We parasitize. We coexist.

I seek the intersection of repulsion and wonder in my daily experience and body sensations, visualizing unseen stimuli. I employ veil as a strategy. It conceals yet reveals. Sometimes, it acts as a transparent layer, sharpening what lies beneath. Other times, it blurs colors and forms, rendering them ambiguous. Veil transforms, entices, and …

From Industrial Building To Affordable Senior Housing: An Idea Book Beyond Code, Weiyi Ma

Masters Theses

This thesis envisions a proposal to adaptively re-purpose Rhode Island’s extant industrial building stock into affordable housing tailored to the needs of its older and more vulnerable citizens. Architectural dignity, in terms of older citizens amidst this housing crisis, is the creation of living environments that honor their autonomy, comfort, and identity through design interventions that provide accessible, luminous, breathable, and socially enriching spaces, reaffirming their rightful place within the community. With humanistic care and logical rigor, it establishes a mathematical framework for assessment and execution, anchored in five criteria: light, air, space, accessibility, and livability, and presents itself in …

Notes On Revivalism, Elana R. Kates

Masters Theses

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Wood In Hand: Open-Ended Wooden Play, Farnaz Dastranj

Masters Theses

This project explores the design of a sustainable, open-ended wooden toy that encourages children’s creativity, collaboration, and physical development. Recognizing the important role of play in learning, the toy aims to connect children to natural materials while supporting skills like eye-hand coordination, flexible thinking, and visual-spatial processing. Free-form linear elements constructed from wood, a renewable, durable, and biodegradable material, the toy invites children to assemble and create various structures using dowels, pegs, and fabric. By offering different connection possibilities and free-form pieces, it fosters imagination, problem-solving, and group play. This project also addresses sustainability by focusing on material longevity, reusability, …

Chasing The Sacred: A Personal Archive, Yiko Yang

Masters Theses

The relationship between humans and nature is like that of a child to a mother, or consciousness to the unconscious. The former arises from the latter, which always holds and shapes it. As human consciousness evolves, the desire to return to the unconscious remains—we are always looking back, searching for that first glimpse of the world.

Thinking back to my childhood, certain fundamental images—archetypes—come to mind. Rooted in the research of Carl Jung and Erich Neumann, this concept also stems from my family’s cultural heritage and my deep, lasting connection with nature as a child. These archetypes reflect the natural …

Post Occupation Amnesia, Zainah Alwuhaib

Masters Theses

On August 2nd, 1990, Iraqi forces invaded and occupied Kuwait in an attempt to expand borders and acquire resources. The occupation lasted for seven months. Even after liberation on February 26, 1991, many prisoners of war had not been found or returned, oil wells were still on fire, and buildings were left damaged or destroyed. The immediate recovery period focused on restoring what was lost and reclaiming a sense of cultural and national identity. Different buildings received different treatment, and analyzing what remains now, 35 years later, is essential in understanding the impacts of occupation on a nation.

To gain …

(By)Product, Samuel M. Sherman

Masters Theses

In the context of industry and design, byproducts such as wood waste, fabric scraps, and other small bits cut off of their parent materials are seen as waste without question. This thesis project is pointed at questioning that assumption and pushing back on it through developing efficient, high-quality manufacturing techniques and thoughtful use cases, showing their ability to exist on the same plane of quality, beauty, manufacturability, and value as their raw material counterparts.

While this work inevitably talks about reducing landfill waste and minimizing the consumption of virgin materials, its core motivation lies in material exploration—the unique properties, texture, …

Ontology Of The Discarded, Hae Young Kwon

Masters Theses

'Ontology of the Discarded' proposes a methodology for conferring existential legitimacy on everyday objects that are easily cast aside by turning them into jewelry. By projecting my own experience of once having been abandoned onto these trivial, voiceless things, the work offers consolation and a path to overcoming neglect. The thesis philosophically analyzes the human〝object relationship and the value judgments humans impose on objects, and, through research on related artworks, demonstrates how jewelry-fying quotidian items transforms both their value and their relationship with viewers. Each piece examines the object's inherent properties and, through strategic jewelryification, elevates it with a distinct …

Naming People, Making Bodies: Reflections On Tukano Onomastics, Geraldo Andrello

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

This article discusses the topic of names and naming among Amerindian peoples, in particular among Tukano speakers on the Uaupés River, northwestern Amazon. After reviewing the analytical contrast between endonyms and exonyms (i.e., internal transmission of names taken from ancestors versus the capture of names from extra-human sources), I explore endonymic systems through an examination of differences between the Jê and Tukano, considered to be exemplary cases of this naming regime. The Tukano case, explored in more depth towards the end of the article, provides elements that indicate an articulation between both regimes as well as a complex dynamic between …

Do Myths Ever Die? Social-Cultural Changes And Mythical Transformations In Indigenous Amazonia: A Dialogue With Peter Gow, Aparecida M. N. Vilaça

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

This is the first Peter Gow Memorial Lecture, given at the University of St Andrews in February 2024. Based on the analysis of different versions of Wari’ myths (Rondônia, Brazil) collected over forty years, the paper has two central objectives. The first is to engage with Peter Gow’s analysis of the mythical transformations resulting from the historical changes experienced by the Piro/Yine Indigenous people of Peru. The second is to discuss Lévi-Strauss’s suggestion that a myth can “die” after successive transformations, exhausting itself, taking the form of romantic tale or legendary tradition.

Evaluation Of The Effects Of Various Types Of Inert And Active Fillers On Asphalt Mixture Performance, Mohammad Hadizadeh Pirbasti

LSU Master's Theses

Abstract:

The performance of asphalt mixtures is significantly influenced by the type and characteristics of fillers used as a replacement for filler part of the aggregates’ batching. According to this research investigation the performance along with durability characteristics of asphalt mixtures are evaluated through different inert and active fillers. The fillers used include Fly Ash, Cement, steel slag powder, and additional filler. These fillers incorporate into two types of asphalt mix design of Stone Matrix Asphalt (SMA) and a surface mix. Fillers are categorized according to their reactive properties alongside their physical attributes leading to active fillers strengthening bond formation …

Impact Of Social Motivation And Communication On Friendship And Loneliness In Autism, Rachael Roizer

Honors Scholar Theses

Friendships and loneliness are both major contributors to happiness and life satisfaction. This study probes group differences in friendship and loneliness in autism, and their links to social motivation and social communication skills. This study includes participants with autism (n = 28), loss of autism diagnosis (n = 29), and neurotypical developmental histories (n = 36). Participants completed an online survey including measures of social motivation, social communication, friendship, and loneliness. Findings indicated group differences in social communication, friendship, and loneliness, but not social motivation. There were significant associations between social motivation and friendship, social communication and …

A Seat At The Table: Expanding The Narrative Of Period Rooms, Jade Mcpike

Masters Theses

A period room represents the interior design and decorative art of a particular historical social setting, typically found in museums. Unlike the white cube gallery, period rooms offer immersive spaces that provide visitors a glimpse into domestic life and the experiences of those who lived in that moment. Stepping into a period room is like traveling back in time, where every piece of furniture and decoration tells us something about the past.

However, despite their immersive qualities, these rooms often lack broader historical context, misrepresenting socio-economic, political, and cultural dynamics of the periods they attempt to depict. They often glorify …

Looped Logic & Wild Lines, Shuting Shao

Masters Theses

What if an exhibition didn’t just present objects but actively pulled visitors into their world? This thesis explores that possibility by reimagining how furniture can be exhibited, using Misha Kahn’s All Tied Up Chair and Michael Thonet’s No. 14 Bentwood Chair as case studies. These two works sit at opposite ends of the design spectrum—Kahn’s chair is an explosion of color, texture, and playful chaos, while Thonet’s is an icon of industrial efficiency and graceful simplicity. Through spatial design, this exhibition translates their contrasting philosophies into immersive environments that extend beyond mere observation. The conventional use of neutral “White Cube” …

Post Salt: Adaptive Architecture For An Uncertain Climate, Mallorie Beckner

Masters Theses

Climate change is rapidly altering seasonal patterns, particularly in the Northeastern U.S., where winter temperatures have risen by approximately 3°F over the past century. As a result, infrastructure designed to support communities during winter conditions, such as road salt storage facilities, faces obsolescence. New York State, the largest consumer of road salt in North America, has 40 salt storage facilities in New York City alone, all of which are sited along interconnected waterways. Though often overlooked, this network of structures forms a critical part of the city’s response to winter weather. As these structures face a paradigm shift, their future …

Soft Potential, Jennifer Choi

Masters Theses

“Soft Potential” highlights the potential of furniture and objects to encourage idiosyncratic and open usage through flexible, modular systems. I utilize modularity as a major tool in prompting interaction and transferring agency. Modular systems embody flexibility in form and function and enable people to tailor designs according to their own ideals. This reflects my aim of designing non-prescriptive work, exercising a soft approach to furniture design.

In this work, softness is a rejection of rigidity in support of human tenderness and agency. Softness in furniture can be both literal and metaphorical — embracing the contours of the human body while …

Lingering Loading, Chi Hao Chang

Masters Theses

In a culture that values speed, seamlessness, and instant clarity, Lingering Loading investigates how graphic design can slow down our ways of seeing and knowing. As technology, internet culture, and social media continue to condition us to expect immediate answers, we have become more passive in how we receive meaning. We scroll, absorb, and move on—often without time to ask what we truly think or feel. But in the increasingly rare moments of pause, something undefinable can happen.

To linger is not to delay progress, but to make space for participation—for meaning to emerge from within, not be delivered from …

The Story Of Stories, Yichu Wang

Masters Theses

I don’t recontextualize objects—I subvert them.

I’m not interested in paying homage to forms or giving them a

second life. I don’t see a fire hydrant and think, “what if it were

a lamp?” I’m not recycling visual cues to create metaphor. What

excites me is the slippage—when an object escapes its assigned

role and starts to unravel. My work imagines this moment: when

function collapses, and the familiar becomes estranged.

This is my version of “I think, therefore I am”—not through

language, but through distortion. By twisting the physical

world, I interrogate our reliance on order, logic, and legibility. …

Enactive Narrativities: Rubber-Times Historicity And Indigenous Media In Peruvian Amazonia, Gabriel Torrealba Alfonzo

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

This article analyzes the intersection between historicity and politics expressed in Kukama media-making practices. It examines the political and enactive dimensions involved in the Indigenous mediatization of rubber-era narratives in Peruvian Amazonia. I focus on the case of Radio Ucamara, a Kukama radio station from the Peruvian town of Nauta, and the ways in which they confront private and state powers through the production of digital and non-digital media. I specifically analyze Indigenous media-makers’ instrumentalizations of rubber-times narrativity by virtue of aesthetic mastery. Radio Ucamara media relies on a polyphonic strategy that encapsulates both narrative and meta-narrative discourses aimed to …

Welcome To My Mind Palace: The Power Of Fantastical Thinking, Sadie Levine

Masters Theses

What follows is a record of my efforts to make the magic and horrors of my internal world tangible and shareable. The brain constructs hyper-specific fictional realities from childhood to adulthood, yet the scientific study of the mind often forgoes the subjective and the visual. I offer a complementary exploration of the mind - one that is highly visual and based on my own experiences, yet still contextualized in psychological research. Finding the magic in everyday life, and by extension, retreating into alternate realities, is a conscious choice I make, but I have not always had the option to choose. …

Can You Hear A Pen Drop? A Study Of Classroom Acoustics And Aural Experience, Henry P. Moe

Honors Projects

This study investigates the relationship between classroom acoustics and perceived listening ease at Seattle Pacific University. Five classrooms were analyzed using objective measurements of reverberation time and background noise, and student and faculty perceptions were collected via surveys. While prior research and acoustic standards establish that poor acoustics hinder learning, findings revealed reverberation time and noise levels alone did not fully explain subjective listening experiences. Factors such as class size, seating arrangement, and external noise sources significantly shaped perceptions. The results underscore the importance of considering pedagogical goals and classroom usage when designing or evaluating learning environments.

A System Of Systems (Sos) Meta-Architecture Approach To Design Digital Platform-Based Domestic Worker Distribution System, Prithbey Raj Dey, Cihan H. Dagli, David Lee Enke

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In this research, a System of Systems (SoS) meta-architecture is conceptualized to design a digital platform-based system framework for the distribution of domestic workers to boost the crowd-sourced economy. While an Object Process Methodology (OPM) is used to articulate the relationships between the objects and functions, a Design Structure Matrix (DSM) has been applied to address the interactions between individual components to categorize them into subsystems to create the SoS architecture. This SoS architecture incorporates several Key Performance Attributes (KPAs) and Key Performance Parameters (KPPs) to systematically evaluate the meta-architectures. The Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP), Pugh’s Evaluation Matrix, and Technique …

Blockchain-Based Ai-Assisted Cyber-Physical Systems For Robust And Reliable Machining Processes, Prithbey Raj Dey, David Lee Enke

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This study demonstrates the prospects of Blockchain-based Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) to establish a scalable framework for designing a secured, automated, and traceable modeling in machining processes. Machining operations like turning, being inherently complex, rely on different types of explanatory parameters such as feed rate, depth of cut, cutting speed, tools, and environmental factors. All of these variables significantly influence key response variables like surface quality, tool wear, cutting forces, and energy consumption. The proposed Blockchain-based framework, designed using the Object-Process Methodology (OPM) systems modeling language, enables the reliable exchange of comparative data streams within a unified data analytics platform. By …

The Prospect Of Geospatial Analysis In The Prediction Of Surface Quality In Machining, Prithbey Raj Dey, David Lee Enke

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This research underscores the prospect of geospatial analysis in machining operations to enhance precise prediction and robustness, offering a comprehensive framework of spatial modeling for advanced manufacturing processes. Geospatial analysis not only provides accurate predictions but also estimates the uncertainty associated with these predictions, offering valuable insights for process optimization. The surface quality in the machining processes is expressed by the estimation of the average surface roughness. While machining parameters are extensively analyzed for their influence on surface quality, the roughness profile parameters are inadequately explored. This work integrates these underexplored parameters into geospatial predictive models and evaluates their impact …

Problematizing A Hegemonic English: An Assessment Of Language Use And Diversity In A Nation Of Immigrant Communities, Charlotte Choat

Honors Projects

The increasing development of language diglossia between global English and local languages around the world raises questions of how the American linguistic character will react. In a culture defined by its lack of ethnolinguistic definition, can language localization occur? A study of language development in America requires a historical assessment of language contact, discourse, and dominance. The present state of American English is not the natural result or authentic representation of America’s population, but the outcome of language restrictionism and resource disparity enforced on many ethnolinguistic groups throughout American history. In the modern era of intensified immigration, ethnolinguistic diversity is …

Creating Family Flow By Participating In The Reflective Practice Of Exercise With Family Members, Julianne M. Sylva

Critical and Creative Thinking Capstones Collection

This synthesis project explores how families can use shared exercise and reflective practice to cultivate lifelong learning habits and deepen family connection. Anchored in the fields of critical and creative thinking, the work integrates concepts of metacognition, flow, and personal mastery to examine how structured, intentional routines can foster both individual growth and relational attunement. The author documents a series of weekly exercise sessions undertaken with her co-parent and child at a local training facility. Drawing from theories of action research, reflective practice (Schön, Brookfield), and flow (Csikszentmihalyi), the project combines personal observation, scholarly frameworks, and course-based learning to construct …

Piloting Trauma-Informed Workshops To Enhance Life Skills In Housing Transitions: Action Research, Negar Ghaderi

Critical and Creative Thinking Capstones Collection

This action research pilot project explores how trauma-informed, life skills workshops grounded in critical and creative thinking methods can support Housing First (HF) residents transitioning from homelessness to permanent housing. The study is based on the understanding that addressing homelessness requires more than housing provision—it demands attention to the cognitive and emotional impacts of trauma through co-created, resident-centered interventions. Using iterative cycles of planning, acting, observing, and reflecting, the project engages a small, fluctuating group of 4–5 participants from a diverse community of 60 HF residents. The pilot program includes six workshops, one focus group discussion, and individual interviews over …

Building A Sustainable System: Reimagining Nonprofit Leadership Through Critical And Creative Thinking, Darius Tafadzwa Shenje Peyton

Critical and Creative Thinking Capstones Collection

This synthesis introduces the Critical and Creative Thinking Leadership Toolbox (CCTLT), a practitioner-oriented framework designed to support nonprofit leaders navigating staff engagement, organizational complexity, and long-term sustainability. Drawing on lived experience, scholarly literature, and graduate coursework in the Critical and Creative Thinking (CCT) program, the project challenges traditional leadership models that treat employee buy-in as a binary status or compliance metric. Instead, it reframes buy-in as a dynamic spectrum shaped by trust, clarity, psychological safety, and reciprocal accountability. The work critiques unsustainable leadership practices common in mission-driven organizations and offers an actionable alternative grounded in reflection, systems awareness, and dialogic …