The Senior Program

At the core of the Senior Program in biology is the senior project, an intensive two-semester field or laboratory research project carried out in association with a faculty member. The project concludes with a written project and an oral presentation given in the second semester of the senior year. The senior project is an opportunity to synthesize and focus previous coursework. It culminates in an original work of scholarship that provides an in-depth examination of a particular empirical or theoretical issue.

The scope and variety of undergraduate research is indicated by the following examples of student projects in biology:

• Investigating the Cross Generational Effects of Controlled Diet on Ovarian Health in Mouse Model for Type II Diabetes
• The Gut Microbiome of Two Sympatric Species of Sea Urchin from Two Locations in Fiji: Does Geographic Location or Sea Urchin Specificity Result in Differences Between Gut Microbiomes?
• The Evolution and Localized Expression of Plancitoxin in Echinoderms
• Using Associative Olfactory Conditioning to Examine Recovery in a Drosophila melanogaster Model of a Closed-Head Traumatic Brain Injury
• Identification and Elimination of Exons in Zea mays CENPC Responsible for Auto-Activating the Yeast 2-Hybrid Assay
• Determining the Parentage of Saunders Peonies through Sequencing of the Adh Gene
• Modeling the Effects of Prescribed Diet and Exercise on Sub-Fertile Mice with Metabolic Disorders
• Use of Leg-Color Variation in Dark-Eyed Juncos (Junco hyemalis) as an Indicator of Condition
• The Role of Aurora B in Spindle Assembly
• Quantifying Double-Stranded Breaks in grp Knockdown Oocytes after Challenging the Chk-1 Checkpoint
• The Presence and Formation of Micronuclei in the Divergent Spindle-1 (dv1) Mutant Maize (Zea mays) Plant Compared to the Wild Type Maize Plant
• The Effects of Diet and Exercise on Oocyte Quality in Obese Mice
• Mapping Protein-Protein Interactions between Mis12-2, CENH3 and CENPC in the Kinetochore of Zea mays Using a Yeast Two Hybrid Assay
• The Bacterial Killing Ability of Bovine Serum in the Presence of Salmonella enterica
• Examining Sub-Lethal Effects of Anticoagulant Rodenticides on Parasite Load and Body Condition in Red Tailed Hawks (Buteo jamaicensis)
• Evaluating the Effect of Lysosomotropic Detergent N-dodecylimidazole (NDI) on Ciliated Protozoan Tetrahymena thermophila
• Development of a Trojan Horse Bacterial Vector for the Delivery of siRNA
• Sea Urchin Venomics: An RNA Sequence Approach to Identify Putative Toxins in the Spines and Pedicellariae of Venomous Sea Urchin Lineages
• The Role of RanGTP in Spindle Assembly of Maize Meiotic Cells
• Evaluating the Consequences of Physiological Trade-Offs on Immune Function in Bighorn Sheep (Ovis canadensis)
• Changes in p53 Activity Due to Chek2 Knockdown in Drosophila melanogaster Oocytes
• Determining and Describing the Three-Dimensional Structure of the Macronucleus of Ichthyophthirius multifiliis
• Protein Composition Comparison Among Species: A Study on Spliceosome Structure
• Analyzing Bighorn Sheep’s Physiological Trade-offs Within Various Populations to Understand What Correlates Immune Responses and Disease Prevalence
• The Effect of Chk2 Knockdown on Double-Stranded Break Repair in Drosophila Oocytes
• Molecular Control of Lunar Spawning in the Sea Urchin Diadema setosum: Localized Expression of Cryptochrome and Timeless Genes in the Skin, Tube Feet, and Gonads on the New Moon