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Senior Thesis Presentations
Each year, VMI’s top cadet researchers complete a senior project or thesis as part of the Institute Honors Program.
Spanning across the Institute's 14 majors, and many disciplines and specializations therein, these projects are the culmination of years of hard work, long nights, meetings with advisors, and countless hours in libraries and labs on post.
Honors Week, an annual event since 2003, provides cadets an opportunity to showcase their research and scholarship across all disciplines in front of their peers and the general public.
2026 Presentation Streams: Links to livestreams for this year's cadet presentations are provided within the Honors Week Schedule. Questions will be monitored through the chat functions during the cadets' presentations for an interactive discussion.
Recent Cadet Presentations
Filter by Year:
| Cadet | Title | Department | Advisor | Year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Boyle, James | Gender Integration in the Military: The Impact on a State’s Ability to Win Interstate Conflict | Col. J. Patrick Rhamey | 2023 | |
| Diallo, Fatoumata | Learning Democracy on the Fly: The Impact of Social Remittance on Democratic Values | Col. Brent Hierman | 2023 | |
| Dufour, Cassidy | Quality Over Quantity: The Effects of Gender Balancing and Gender Mainstreaming of Female Officers on the Operational Success of UN Peacekeeping Missions | Maj. Timothy Passmore | 2023 | |
| Hein, Holly | Democratic National Identity and Self-Limitation in Counterterrorism | Dr. Vera Heuer | 2023 | |
| Maher, Jillian | The Influence of Refugee Flows on the American Foreign Policy Response to the Arab Spring | Col. Spencer Bakich | 2024 | |
| Malazo, Joseph L. | Benevolent Liminal Deities: The Regulation of Information Communication Technology in Democracies | Maj. Timothy Passmore | 2022 | |
| Marks, Brandon | The Impact of Domestic Context on Microfinance Provision and Effectiveness | Maj. Meagan Roosevelt | 2023 | |
| Schaefer, Nick | Why PMCs Pick Up the Slack | Col. Spencer Bakich | 2023 | |
| Shultz, Riley | Effectiveness of Dissent Management Tactics in Authoritarian Regimes | Dr. Vera Heuer | 2024 | |
| Thomas, Devin | War Onset Under Power Transition Theory | Col. J. Patrick Rhamey | 2024 | |
| Thomas, Leon M. | Democracies and Autocracies: Structural Factors that Determine Military Interventions | Lt. Col. J. Patrick Rhamey | 2022 | |
| Woodward, Gabriele | Media Freedom and Its Correlation with the Frequency of Terrorism | Col. Dennis Foster | 2024 | |
| Yerasimides, London | The Effects of Individualism on Terrorism Strategy | Col. Dennis Foster | 2023 | |
| Handford, Gabriella | Effect of Psychedelic Drug Therapy on Male Betta Splendens Aggression as Compared to Traditional Pharmaceuticals | Maj. Molly Kent | 2024 | |
| Harvey, Pierce | Sir Walter Raleigh: An Inconvenient Gentleman | Lt Col. Eric Osborne | 2024 | |
| Peterson, Justin | The Effect of Portland Cement and Hydrated Lime on the Compressive Strength of Saturated Soils | Dr. Jai Kyoung Jung | 2024 | |
| Collier, Warner | Driving Value: Classic Cars as an Alternative Investment | Brig. Gen. Robert Moreschi | 2024 | |
| Holt, Alexandria | Challenges to Implementing Tamazight Language Policy in Morocco: The Case of the Tifinagh Script | Maj. Hicham Assaoui | 2024 | |
| Crouch, Russell | Historical Models’ Influence on the Belt and Road Initiative | Dr. Laura Xie | 2024 | |
| Pickford, Elizabeth | Concurrent use of Nicotine and Fluoxetine: Effects on Aggression and Cortisol Levels | Maj. Molly Kent. | 2024 | |
| Palmer, Dylan | Drone Countermeasures, Ethics, and Drones' Effects on a Modern Battlefield | Mr. Amish Parikh | 2024 | |
| Townsend, Annie | A Security Analysis of the Virginia Military Institute’s Barracks through the Lens of Infrastructure | Col. Chuck Newhouse | 2024 | |
| Krueger, Jonathan | I Saw a Man in Tennessee | Maj. Henry Wise | 2024 | |
| Hoffman, Adam | A Quantitative Look at VMI's Recruiting | Lt. Col. Sara Whipple | 2024 | |
| Kleinschuster, Jacob | Quantitative Exploration on State Taxation Strategies | Col. John David | 2024 | |
| Dargis, Kyle | The Second Flood?: A Novel on Sex-addiction, Relationship, and the Power of Story | Maj. Henry Wise | 2024 | |
| Kushner, Christoper | Automated Yield and Phenotypic Analysis of Soybeans Through the Use of Machine Learning Tools | Col. Anne Alerding | 2024 | |
| McCown, John | Francis Marion: The Revolution's Most Effective Partisan | Col. Dave Gray | 2024 | |
| Reid, James | "Put None but Americans on Guard,": The Know-Nothing Movement and the Collapse of the Two-Party System in Antebellum America | Maj. Madeleine Ramsey | 2024 | |
| Townsend, Virginia | Domestic Political Effects of Foreign Involvement in Critical Mineral Extraction | Col. Brent Hierman | 2024 | |
| Cheung, Josh | Is God a Vegetarian? A Study of Vegetative Imagery in the Bible | Lt. Col. Steven Knepper | 2024 | |
| Griffith, Noland | An Exploratory Analysis of Crime from Randomly Selected Neighborhoods in Richmond Virginia | Col. Samuel Allen | 2024 | |
| Meintjes, Ulrich | Thermal Mechanical Behavior of a Lenticular Composite Boom | Col. Joseph Blandino | 2024 | |
| Short, Herbert | Combatant Craft Launch Stress | Col. Joseph Blandino | 2024 | |
| Basener, Abigail | Detecting AI-generated Writing vs. Student Writing | Col. John David | 2024 | |
| Miller, Jackson | Dostoyevsky and Star Wars: Understanding How Narratives Can Help Us Deepen Our Moral Awareness | Dr. Reshef Agam-Segal | 2024 | |
| Slade, Colby | Is the Widespread Adoption of Electrical Vehicles Possible and Beneficial Considering the Supply and Cost of Energy? | Col. Samuel Allen | 2024 | |
| Ortiz, Miles | Metabolic Responses to Load Carraige in Hypoxia and Normoxia | Lt. Col. Daniel Baur | 2024 | |
| Mon, Alexander | Exploring Vinamidinium Salt Derivatives for Nitrogen-Containing Heterocycle Synthesis | Col. Stanton Smith | 2024 | |
| Salisbury, Alexander | Flash Heating of a Nuclear Fuel Rod to Determine Thermal Properties | Capt. Robert McMasters | 2024 | |
| Ripley, Scout | Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Ideas in ‘Self-Reliance’ as Justification and a Bulwark Against The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 | Maj. Henry Wise | 2023 | |
| Soo, Christopher H. | Narco Souvenirs for Sale: The Fight Against the Touristification of Colombia’s Narco Heritage | Dr. Sabrina Laroussi | 2022 | |
| Hoffman, Michael M, | Kicking the Army’s Vietnam Syndrome: The Cultural Renaissance of the Post-Vietnam Army | Col. David Gray | 2022 | |
| Lamm, Logan M. | CubeSat Motion Simulation through Quadcopter State-Space Modeling | Col. Joseph Blandino | 2022 | |
| Hamner, Daniel T. | The Role of Frigates and Small Vessels in Age of Sail Navies | Lt. Col. Eric Osborne | 2022 | |
| Petrassi, Genevieve L. | The Role of Frigates and Small Vessels in Age of Sail Navies | Col. Stanton Smith | 2022 | |
| Dickenson, Rachael A. | Performance of Soybean (Glycine max) Cultivars in Varying Rural Virginia Sites: Effect of Site Characteristics on Shoot Structure and Yield | Col. Anne Alerding | 2022 | |
| Mallari, Tanner P. | Evaluation of Crowdsourcing Applications in Disaster Relief | Dr. Youna Jung | 2022 | |
| Stann, Matthew W. | Structural Analysis and Optimization of Road Racing Bicycle Frames | Col. Matthew Swenty | 2022 | |
| Luchansky, Jacob A. | The Social Network of Police Misconduct in Chicago | Col. Karen Bliss | 2022 | |
| Schlussel, Ethan J. | Performance of Additively Manufactured Thermal Insulation with Geometric Voids in Hypersonic Conditions | Capt. Robert McMasters | 2022 | |
| Flora, Emma L. | Pro-Choice, Pro-Life, or Other: Reframing the Abortion Issue Through Non-Minimal Narratives | Dr. Reshef Agam-Segal | 2022 | |
| Rezendes, Rhett M. | An Intellectual History of Mariátegui and Lenin’s Contributions to the Shining Path Insurgency | Col. Geoff Jensen | 2022 | |
| Knox, Carson B. | Nostromo and Schopenhauer's Sublime | Maj. Patrick Eichholz | 2022 | |
| Conis, Urie N. | Rhetorical Analysis of Ian Shapira's Washington Post Articles | Maj. Adam Cody | 2022 | |
| Hulburt, Christopher M. | Unearthed Contributors: African Americans at Virginia Military Institute, 1839-1851 | Maj. Madeline F. Ramsey | 2022 | |
| Broecker, Andrew S. | Does the Mind Place Limits on the Body? | Col. Wade Bell | 2022 | |
| Tobin, Jonathan T. | Behavioral Outcomes, Hormone Secretion, and cFos Activation Identifies Telencephalic Regions Implicated in Siamese-fighting Fish, Betta splendens, Aggression and Resilience | Maj. Molly Kent | 2022 | |
| Tidwell, Kyle W. | The Effects of Chronic Stress on the Behavior, Brain and Hormones of Betta Fish | Maj. Molly Kent | 2022 | |
| Hoeft, Robert T. C. | The Impact of Housing Policy on Economic and Educational Outcomes by Race in Norfolk, Virginia | Col. Tinni Sen | 2022 | |
| Foster, James D. | Pyrolysis Reactor Burning Plastic Feedstock | Capt. Robert McMasters | 2022 | |
| Wegrzyn, Thaddeus Z. | Longitudinal Physiological Assessment of VMI Cadets in their 1st Class Year Compared to the Ratline | Maj. Daniel Baur | 2022 | |
| Melusen, Drew P. | The Future of American Road Infrastructure Funding | Col. Wakeel Idewu | 2022 | |
| Hughes, Bridget A. | The Blood of Patriots and Tyrants: Examining the Justifications of the American Revolution | Col. Ryan Holston | 2022 | |
| Kirk, Noah E. | Polarization and Interstellar Extinction in the Direction of Open Star Cluster NGC 6633 | Col. Gregory Topasna | 2022 | |
| DiPrampero, Alexander S. | The Impact of Box Size in a Direct Shear Box Test | Dr. Jai Kyoung Jung | 2022 | |
| Hurst, Grayson H. | Analyzing the Benefits of Porous Pavement on Surface Temperature and Water Quality at Interstate 81 Exit 140 Park and Ride | Dr. Tanjina Afrin | 2022 | |
| Lawrence, Ana L. | Psychosocial History and Combat Exposure as a Predictor for Post Deployment Mental Health Issues | Lt. Col. Sara Whipple | 2022 | |
| Mercer, Jackson D. | Dirty Fights and Clean Soldiers: Collective Identity Construction in Selected American War Films at the Turn of the 21st Century | Lt. Col. Catharine Ingersoll | 2022 | |
| Nicksic, Luke S. | Does the Equal Weight Index Fund Dominate the Market Capitalization Index Fund for the Long Term Investor? | Col. Jeff S. Smith | 2022 | |
| Ogle, Caleb J. | Exploring the Potential to Understand the Ecology of Insectivorous Bats Using Photographs Posted to iNaturalist | Col. Paull Moosman | 2022 | |
| Rice, Alexander N. | Monitoring Foot Traffic with Internet of Things Devices | Col. James Baker | 2022 | |
| Bignan, Loic R. | Software Development and Hardware Integration of KeydetSAT-1 | Col. Joseph Blandino | 2022 | |
| Ward, Julia | Engineering a More Efficient Future: Comparative Study of Advanced Delamination Technologies for Battery Recycling | Col. Daniel Harrison | 2026 | |
| Greentree, Jacob | The Provision of Peace: Effective Counterinsurgency Strategy and Objectives | Col. J. Patrick Rhamey | 2026 | |
| Savard, Nolan | Improving Security Measures for QR Codes | Col. David Feinauer | 2026 | |
| Dovgaltuk, Timofey | Anatomy of Equity Bubbles | Col. Jeff Smith | 2026 | |
| Eynon, Nicholas | Testing Dissimilar Metals and their Interface Strength: How Do the Interface Characteristics of Collision-welded Metals Affect the Strength of Their Weld? | Lt. Col. Seyed Soltani | 2026 | |
| Hernandez, Andres | Development of Novel Iridium CNC Compounds for Broadband Non-linear Reverse Saturable Absorption | Col. Daniel Harrison | 2026 | |
| Vijayan, Jai | “Move and Maintain” American Last Mile Logistics in the Solomon Islands Campaign, 1942 – 1944 | Lt. Col. Joel Christenson | 2026 | |
| McEneaney, James | The Impact of Doping Variations on the Infrared Photoconductivity of Silicon | Col. Shawn Addington | 2026 | |
| Minter, Kaiden | How Pan-Nationalism Legitimized Egypt and Yugoslavia's Political Autonomy | Dr. Salih Yasun | 2026 | |
| Rinker, Noah | A Comparative Analysis of Finite Element Analysis and Classical Beam Theory in the Prediction of Beam Deflections | Lt. Col. Kacie D’Alessandro | 2026 | |
| Kleinschuster, Matthew | The Tradeoffs of the State Lottery | Col. John David | 2026 | |
| Adams, Anna Grace | U.S. Foreign Relations with Colombia from 1919-1939 | Col. Houston Johnson | 2026 | |
| Bowen, Benjamin | Writing Happy Endings: Practice and Theory | Col. Polly Atwell | 2026 | |
| Smith, Sadie | A Prioritization Dilemma: United States Infrastructure Allocation as a Response to External Cyber Threat | Col. Spencer Bakich | 2026 | |
| Strapponi, Amber | Containerized AI Security for Tactical IoT: A Resilient Edge-First Approach | Dr. Mahamed Azab | 2026 | |
| Ericsson, Jack | Integration of Monotonic Tests and Digital Image Correlation for Rutting Evaluation in Balanced Mix Design | Dr. Aksel Seitllari | 2026 | |
| Davis, Audrey | Politicizing Ethnicity: Polarizing Effects of Blanket Party Bans in Africa | Col. Brent Hierman | 2025 | |
| Myhre, Jack | AI Deep Learning for Financial Document Analysis: Leveraging NLP for 10-K and 10-Q Reports | Col. Ramoni Lasisi | 2026 | |
| Martindale, Delilah | Preventing Suicide: The Effect of Visibility on Mental Health Infrastructure (MHI) | Dr. Vera Heuer | 2025 | |
| Smith, Liam | Strategic Goods and Economic Interdependence: Liberal Peace or Realist Conflict? | Maj. Megan Roosevelt | 2026 | |
| Novotny, Courtney | Morphological andphysiological differences in rural rats, urban rats, and laboratory-bred rats | Maj. Molly Kent | 2025 | |
| Feher, Nicholas | A Corpus-Based Analysis of the Variation in Possessive Noun Phrases in Moroccan Arabic | Maj. Hicham Assaoui | 2026 | |
| Webster, Ethan | Values and Foreign State’s Societal Perceptions | Col. Brent Hierman. | 2025 | |
| Layman, Katlyn | "Man! I Feel Like a Woman": The Successes and Failures of Contentious Women’s Activism | Dr. Vera Heuer | 2026 | |
| Bowles, Knight | Synthesis of Reverse Saturable Absorption Agents from Iridium-Based Compounds | Col. Daniel Harrison | 2025 | |
| Gibson, John | Utilitarian Ethics and the Limits of Economic Moral Reasoning | Dr. Duncan Richter | 2026 | |
| Williams, Gabriel | Connections and Corruption, A Firm-Level Model of FDI Under Corruption | Maj. Megan Roosevelt. | 2025 | |
| Bott, Connor | Design and Analysis of an Electromechanical Marine Wreck Anchor | Col. Gerald Sullivan | 2026 | |
| Moore, Simon | Why Live?: An Analysis of Arthur Schopenhauer’s Life and Philosophy | Dr. Duncan Richter | 2025 | |
| Rhodes, Alden | Fifth Columns: The Aftermath of Exclusion | Col. Brent Hierman | 2026 | |
| Roberts, Jude | Assessing the Efficacy of LLM—GPT4o Mini—for Resume Selection and Human Talent Management: A Comprehensive Analysis of Accuracy, Precision, Recall, Consistency, Reliability, and Efficiency | Dr. Sherif Abdelhamid | 2025 | |
| Rogers, Jackson | Is Solitary Confinement Cruel and Unusual Punishment? | Col. Glenn Sullivan | 2026 | |
| Dowden, Cate | Establishing Statistical Correlations Between Operational Parameters and Oxygen System Failures in the F/A-18 | Capt. Robert McMasters | 2025 | |
| Boynewicz, James | Exploring Natural Adaptations: Neurobiological Comparison Between Rural and Urban Wild Rat Populations of Rattus Norvegicus | Maj. Molly Kent | 2025 | |
| Williams, Harrison | Sustainable Debt Limit Estimates for the U.S. and 24 Other OECD Countries | Maj. Steven Landgraf | 2025 | |
| Bierstine, Benjamin | Airfield Combat Logistics | Maj. Sarah Patterson | 2025 | |
| Yemelianova, Anya | Military Service and Participation in Right Wing Terrorism | Col. Dennis Foster | 2025 | |
| Shank, Gretal | Ashes to Ashes: A Memoir Anthology | Col. Julie Brown | 2025 | |
| Bowyer, Cole | Audiogram Emulator | Col. James Squire | 2025 | |
| Cross, Jack | Aggregate Optimization of High Strength Fiber-Reinforced Concrete | Maj. Andrei Ramniceanu | 2023 | |
| Butler, Colin | High Strength Concrete and its Application in Composite Beams | Maj. Kacie D’Alessandro | 2023 | |
| McCarthy, Conor | Improving Mesh Based 3D Fillets | Lt. Col. David Feinauer | 2023 | |
| Lalena, Dominick | Understanding Visibility as it Applies to Organizational Security and Suggesting Improvements with Open Source Technology | Lt. Col. David Feinauer | 2023 | |
| Caulfield, William | Multi-Body Dynamic Analysis of a Baja SAE Vehicle using ADAMS CAR | Maj. Craig Altmann | 2023 | |
| Cocoris, Chris | Suppressing the Red Tide: Greek-American-British Counterinsurgency Efforts Against Greek Communist Insurgents During the Third Phase of the Greek Civil War, 1945-1949 | Col. David Gray | 2023 | |
| Curtis, Claire | Breaking Down Barriers When It Comes to Learning Differences at VMI | Lt. Col. Sara Whipple | 2023 | |
| Burton, Harris | Jurisdiction and Crime in Indian Country | Col. Valentina Dimitrova-Grajzl | 2023 | |
| Tran, Binh | C# Frequency Sampling-Based FIR Filter Design | Col. James Squire | 2023 | |
| Kelley, Noah | Structural Properties of Manmade Bamboo Studs for Use in Modern Structural Design | Col. Charles Newhouse | 2023 | |
| Wolfe, Sam | Sex and Breeding Differences in Brain Cell counts of Stickleback Fish | Maj. Molly Kent | 2023 | |
| Argauer, Philip | Increased Physical Fitness with VOLT | Maj. Daniel Baur | 2023 |
NOTE: Rank of advisor is listed as it was at time of research.