#46: Knots and Unknots with Erika Beserra ’22, Mathematics

Take a circular hair tie and set it on a table. That’s an “unknot”. Pick it up, cut it, twist it into a knot and then reconnect the cut ends, and now you’ve got the kind of knot that mathematicians study. Follow along as Erika takes us on a brief journey into her thesis focusing on knot theory.

Reed community members can read Erika’s thesis, “Khovanov Homology: Putting Pants on Knots,” online in the Electronic Theses Archive.

#45: Crip Time in Higher Ed with Hannah Card ’22, Sociology

Albert talked with Hannah about her thesis exploring how students with chronic illnesses manage their time while in college by studying Reed students.

Reed community members can read Hannah’s thesis, “‘Resting time is not wasted time’: Chronic Illness, Time Perspectives, and The Reed Student Experience,” online in the Electronic Theses Archive.

#44: Crime Fighting Time with Will Knight ’22, English

Dive into comic book studies and some great advice on how to approach the thesis with Will in Albert’s first interview for the podcast.

Reed community members can read Will’s thesis, “Extended Gutters: Sequencing Space and the Narrative Power of the Panel in Watchmen,” online in the Electronic Theses Archive.

#43: Assertions with Joseph Puglisi Clark ’22, Philosophy

This is a podcast, and that was an assertion. Joseph spent a year exploring the nature of assertions like this in his thesis (which was mostly written after midnight, apparently).

This is also the last interview conducted by last year’s student producer, Amelie. Thank you Amelie for all the work you did for the podcast, and for helping us get to where we are.

Reed community members can read Joseph’s thesis, “Asserting as Committing,” online in the Electronic Theses Archive.

#42: Studying Borges with Natalya Hill ’22, Religion

Natalya and Amelie talk about how Natalya found Reed and became a religion major. This is also our last episode of the semester. We’ll be back after winter break with more interviews from the class of 2022.

Reed community members can read Natalya’s thesis, “The Ineffable Center: Islam in Borges’s Intertextual Universes,” online in the Electronic Theses Archive.

#41: Understanding Climate Graphs with Rishi Krishnamurthy ’22, Psychology

Why do two people look at the same graph and walk away with different interpretations? Rishi spent a year looking into some reasons for why this happens when people are looking at climate data.

Reed community members can read Rishi’s thesis, “Overt Attention and Cognitive Ability Explain Climate Graph Interpretation,” online in the Electronic Theses Archive.

#40: Taiwanese Political Parties with Seamus Boyle ’22, International Policy Studies

Seamus’s thesis focuses on the fall of Taiwan’s Kuomintang (KMT) party, and the impacts this party has had in Seamus’s own family background.

Reed community members can read Seamus’s thesis, “The Blue Sky Falls, the White Sun Sets: a Study of the Decline of the Kuomintang,” online in the Electronic Theses Archive.

#39: Virtue Ethics and Restorative Justice with Louise de Picciotto ’22

Louise talks about learning to accept criticism, and how an influential class got her interested in Aristotle.

Reed community members can read Louise’s thesis, “An Aristotelian Argument for Restorative Justice: How We Can Use Forgiveness Instead of Punitive Punishment to Heal from Wrongdoings,” online in the Electronic Theses Archive.

#38: Teaching About Climate Change with Kieran Wharton ’22, Environmental Studies

When Kieran learned that high school chemistry teachers reportedly teach climate change at the lowest rate among STEM teachers, he decided to study this for his thesis. You won’t learn much about climate change in this episode, but you will learn about Kieran’s learning process as he discovered how education research is done (lots of analyzing of interview transcripts).

Reed community members can read Kieran’s thesis, “Incorporation of Climate Change Topics in High School Chemistry: Teacher Practices, Beliefs, and Barriers to Implementation,” online in the Electronic Theses Archive.