Mission impossible: W&M seniors juggle multiple honors theses
More than 180 William & 玛丽 seniors this year are taking on a final challenge within their undergraduate disciplines – an honors thesis.
A daunting task to finish one thesis, seniors Liam Staker, Adam Jutt, 玛丽claire O’Brien, and Sarah Sakly have undertaken the seemingly impossible task of completing two theses each during the 2024-25 academic year, all focused on topics within mathematics and scientific fields.
Typically, these projects are accomplished through independent study over the course of two semesters with the assistance of a faculty advisor and through the Departmental Honors program administered by the Charles Center.
While some of the four dual-thesis students’ topics were inspired by personal experiences, others were influenced by research projects completed with professors. No matter the impetus behind the formidable task of completing two theses, each senior demonstrates a remarkable commitment to interdisciplinary work fostered by crucial support systems and funding through the Charles Center.
Sakly’s and O’Brien’s theses span the fields of psychology and neuroscience, with Sakly’s projects focusing on different aspects of brain function. Her first thesis looks at the impact of music on individuals with memory disorders, such as dementia, to measure music’s effects upon different individuals.
Sakly’s second thesis is more personal and centers on a genetic mutation experienced by her own brother. SynGAP-1 can lead to epilepsy and intellectual disability, conditions that Sakly is passionate about understanding and perhaps one day preventing, if possible.
“I am inspired every day by the struggles of those faced with the disorder,” Sakly said. “It is rewarding in the sense that it makes me feel like I am leaving behind an impact, a legacy of my own, and a way for me to become personal with my research through my stories and experience.”
To Sakly, the amount of work that comes with her theses has been challenging, but she has an integral support system of friends and advisors that has taught her that “the ones who love you and believe in you will have your back.”
Her best piece of advice for those starting or thinking about a thesis is to not let fear interfere with the process.
She added that the mentorship of her advisors – Professor of Applied Sciences Greg Conradi Smith, Associate Professor of Psychological Sciences Paul Kieffaber, and Associate Professor of Psychological Sciences Peter Vishton – were instrumental in guiding her research.
“Consider what is important to you. When I first settled on my thesis, I chose these subjects because these are the ones that inspire me. I would love to become an expert in these subjects, so find the parts of your major that inspire you, and thrive to become the best at them,” Sakly said.
In a similar vein, O’Brien is pursuing theses on topics regarding an emotion-coaching intervention through the department of psychological sciences and a brain monitoring technique called functional near-infrared spectroscopy, or fNIRS, through the neuroscience program.
O’Brien’s first research project focuses on helping adolescents with emotional regulation by walking them through various hypothetical social situations. The emotion-coaching intervention used by O’Brien was first developed in Australia before Professor of Psychological Sciences Janice Zeman brought it to the United States.
O’Brien conducted her research during six weeks of intensive two-hour sessions with children, centered on their emotion regulation strategies. “It’s very important that we teach them emotions are neither good nor bad, but uncomfortable or comfortable, and that really changes how they think about their emotions, and they stopped trying to suppress them per se,” O’Brien explained.
Her second thesis, advised by Assistant Professor of Kinesiology Stephanie Caligiuri, was inspired by O’Brien’s own curiosity about how her brain would respond to activities such as meditation. Her personal study eventually turned into a broader investigation with W&M students, examining how brains react to meditative exercises as measured by prefrontal cortex brain activity. “Not everyone's brain looks like my brain when I meditate,” O’Brien said.
“Research is, of course, the pursuit of knowledge, sometimes for just knowledge’s sake. But I'm really interested in how we can apply research to make people's lives better. I think it's very rewarding to see a difference as we're doing it,” O’Brien said.
Staker and Jutt, while also pursuing theses within STEM fields, are researching topics in mathematics, economics, and physics.
Jutt, who is completing theses within the math and economics departments, has taken a more historical approach by studying effects of the Great Migration on the disparity between Black and white schools in the segregated 20th-century South.
Supported by Professor of Economics John Parman, Jutt feels that his work has the potential to place present-day racial disparities in education and income in the context of sociocultural dynamics from a century ago. This research could then “add to the body of literature demonstrating just how systemic certain racial gaps are.”
“I first became interested in the Great Migration through research I’ve done with Professor Parman, specifically a project looking at the migration’s role in shifting labor market norms in Northern metropolitan areas for women,” Jutt said. “I enjoyed work on that project so much that I figured I’d do a thesis on a related question!”
On the opposite end of the spectrum, Jutt’s mathematics thesis is in the field of graph theory with the support of Department of Mathematics Professor and Chair Gexin Yu.
“What does that mean? Take the graph theory class — Math 332 — to find out,” Jutt said.
In simple terms, graph theory is a way to study how things are connected in a system. For example, locations in a city can be visualized as nodes, or vertices, and the roads connecting these locations are an example of what graph theory calls “edges.” If the roads never touch the same location, these are called “disjoint paths.” Through Jutt’s research, he hopes to find out how many of these disjoint paths it would take to guarantee that every vertex, or location based on this example, in a specific graph is in one of these paths.
To Jutt, the most rewarding part of this research has been honing his creativity and problem-solving abilities, as if completing a puzzle. “It’s just me, a pencil, and a sheet of paper, and I basically just have to throw ideas at the wall and hope something sticks,” Jutt expressed.
To students looking to complete a thesis, Jutt has three pieces of advice: apply for Charles Center funding, find a topic you enjoy working on, and speak with advisors regularly in order to hold yourself accountable.
Staker, who is a double major in mathematics and physics, also emphasized the importance of a faculty support system and topics of deep personal interest.
His work in math, guided by Assistant Professor of Mathematics Fan Ge, focuses on analytic number theory. He studies relationships between matrices and how they relate to different functions relevant to prime numbers and distribution. Additionally, his physics work studies black holes and stochastic quantum gravity in a thesis supervised by Professor of Physics Joshua Erlich.
“I worked the entire summer on both of them, and spent a good portion just teaching myself what felt like three classes out of just reading PDFs,” Staker said. “Math is just very convoluted. If you don't understand it, once you get it, it's straightforward, but if you don’t, it's just a bunch of symbols on a page.”
Staker hopes that completion of his theses will eventually result in publication, contributing to a broad field of research within both disciplines.
“Shop around if you want to do research, but you're not sure exactly what, ask around the department, talk to professors,” Staker advised. “Don't just settle with something because you want to do research. You can definitely propose research that nobody else is doing already, and people will latch onto that.”
Interested in learning more about the research journeys of these and other W&M seniors? The Spring Honors Research Symposium kicks off with the Barr Prize in Public Speaking Competition at 7pm on Thu. April 3, followed by a full day of research talks and poster sessions the following day, Fri. April 4.
