My Honors Thesis was a creative project in which I created a new course, The Road to Women’s Economic Empowerment (SGS 494). This course explores how different societal features affect the agency and economic development of women worldwide. We begin by defining women’s agency and conceptualizing the barriers to women’s economic empowerment. Barriers include gender norms, health conditions, degradation of environmental and/or natural capital, discrimination, and skewness in political representation. Each barrier is given further investigation through case studies in a variety of countries. We end the course by looking at policies and laws in different countries, evaluating their success and failures to improve women’s economic and social autonomy. This is an online course which includes video interviews and podcasts from scholars and activists, a quiz every other week, video posts which enable discussion of material with peers, and a final project to apply the concepts introduced in class.

In the Spring Semester of 2022, I embarked on an experience that would change my life forever: a study abroad trip to St. Petersburg, Russia, right before the Russian invasion of Ukraine. To honor such a unique story, I have decided to incorporate it into my Barrett Honors Thesis, which will analyze Russian public opinions on the War in Ukraine and situate them to my own personal encounters of Russian reactions to the invasion, alongside telling my own story. My final assignment for Barrett will cover both the perilous and the peculiar, as I describe my observations and interactions with the city and its inhabitants. My goal is to create a piece of long-form journalism that compares the perceptions I had in the former Union of Soviet Social Republics with the research findings of numerous news sources, in an attempt to illustrate the true political climate in Russia today.

This project was an exploratory take on outreach in the life sciences - looking into the existing literature and practices and formulating a proof of concept for future outreach with synthesizes my findings. The research culminated in the creation of an insect guide for the novice observer, which reads as a modern take on the dichotomous key and allows amateur insect observers to develop some skills of identification with relatively little entomological knowledge.

The WELL Building Standard is the first of its kind to focus on the health and wellness of building occupants. It’s a dynamic rating system between design and construction with evidence-based health and wellness interventions. It’s a holistic design approach addressing seven concepts: air, water, nourishment, light, fitness, comfort, and mind. Within these concepts are 100 “features” intended to address specific aspects of occupant health, comfort, and knowledge. To model these concepts and features, I will be using my Spring 2022 interior design studio project to exemplify the importance and benefits of the WELL Building Standard in workplace design.

"After his fiancé's sudden death, a medic-in-training becomes targeted by a spirit with the ability to manipulate thoughts." The compelling question of Something Beautiful is, “What is the price of clinging to internal perceptions?” The central idea of this project is to create a story about a character whose internal conflicts surrounding an event, in this case his boyfriend’s death, end up creating an environment in which those internal perceptions and his adherence to them lead to a potential downfall. Throughout my college experience, almost all of my open-ended work has involved some psychological aspect. The idea of one’s view and experience being vastly different from the truth, with little way of knowing, fascinates me. It’s a powerful way of assembling a story and an inherently nontraditional way of depicting things – one I’ve found works. The brain is a maze and there are countless engaging, innovative ways to depict this maze. The result of this project will be a 10–15-minute festival-ready short film exploring the themes discussed above. Production was a difficult process outside of the capstone system, and editing is underway as of April 2022, with a full release and festival run planned for the summer.