Graduate Specialization & Graduate Minor Dissertation and Thesis Titles

YearStudentDepartmentDissertation or Thesis TopicAdvisor(s)
2023Rosalind Kichler, Ph.D.SociologyOld, Gray, and Gay: Lesbian Aging and IdentityProfessor Emily Kazyak
Kayla Schmitz, M.A.Communication Studies"Don't Put Restrictions on Us": The Dangers of Conservative and Populist Appeals for Abortion Access in Post-Roe AmericaProfessor Kristen Hoerl
2022Isaac Essex, M.A.English"Dear Boy"Professor Stacey Waite
Ashley Garcia, Ph.D.Communication Studies(Re)Scripting the Black-Activist-Athlete: Remembering the Racialized Politics of Sport in the NFL's Protests During the National AnthemProfessors Ronald Lee and Casey Ryan Kelly
Celie J. Knudsen, M.A.EnglishWriting Fat: Rejecting the Logics of Anti-Fatness in the Teaching of WritingProfessor Shari Stenberg
2021Trevor M. Haltom, Ph.D.SociologyCover Guys: Masculinity, Sexuality, and Representations of Men's Bodies in Popular Magazines for MenProfessors Kelsy Burke and Kristen Olson
Montserrat Fuente‑Camacho, Ph.D.Modern Languages and LiteraturesRepensado la discapacidad en España y Latinoamérica: La producción cultural hispánica de autores/as con diversidad funcional en los siglos XX y XXIProfessor Iker González-Allende
Mallory L. Marsh, Ph.D.Communication StudiesThe Feminine Face of Racialized Violence: White Womanhood, White Women, and the Ku Klux KlanProfessor Casey Ryan Kelly
Cadyn Alexander, M.A.SociologyTwitch.tv and its LGBTQIA+ Tag: A Digital Ethnography Investigating How LGBTQIA+-affirming Video Game Streamers and Viewers Interact and Build LGBTQIA+ Spaces OnlineProfessor Kelsy Burke
2020Bethany Kraft, M.A.Textiles, Merchandising and Fashion Design
Chelsea Richardson, Ph.D.PhilosophyUpon the Body: Examining the Relationship Between Race and AncestryProfessors Jennifer McKitrick and Harry Ide
Jennifer Rome, Ph.D.Communication StudiesExploring Constructions of “Good” Motherhood on Social Media: Navigating Neoliberal Mommy Rhetorics and the Negative Affective Entanglements of Women's Discourses on Pinterest, Facebook, and InstagramProfessor Casey Ryan Kelly
Darcy Wente-Hahn, Ph.D.Communication StudiesCommunication Privacy Management in Mixed Orientation MarriagesProfessor Dawn O. Braithwaite
2019Katherine Henson, Ph.D. English“so long a thrall”Professor Kwame Dawes
Regan Levitte, M.A.English"Thanks to 'X' for Beta-ing!”: Fan Fiction Beta Readers in the Writing CenterProfessor Debbie Minter
Gina Keplinger, M.A.English, Composition and RhetoricCells: On Teaching the Body (Behind Bars)Professor Shari Stenberg
Keshia McClantoc, M.A.EnglishBecoming a Fan: Reinventing, Repurposing, and Resisting First-Year CompositionProfessor Stacey Waite
Nicole Rudolph, M.A.Textiles, Merchandising and Fashion DesignProfessor Claire Nichols
Olatz Sanchez-Txabarri, M.A.Modern Languages and Literature-SpanishProfessor Iker Gonzalez-Allende
Stevie K. Seibert Desjarlais, Ph.D.English, Literary and Cultural StudiesAmerican Writers of Popular Rebellion: Gender, Race, and Class, 1945 to PresentProfessor Amelia Montes
2018Aimee Allard, Ph.D.EnglishFashioning Madness: Clothing in American Women's Asylum Narratives, 1925-1965Professor Guy Reynolds
Erin Bertram, Ph.D.English (Emphasis on Creative Writing)It’s Not a Lonely World (a hybrid text memoir)Professor Stacey Waite
Miriam Navas Hernandez, M.A.Modern Languages and LiteraturesProfessor Iker González-Allende
Maria Nazos, Ph.D.English (Emphasis on Creative Writing)A two-part thesis – “Pulse” and “The Slow Horizon That Breathes”Professor Grace Bauer
Sarah A. Taylor, Ph.D.Child, Youth & Family StudiesExploring Adolescent Dating Violence in Rural Communities: A Mixed Methods StudyProfessor Yan Ruth Xia
Brandi Woodell, Ph.D.SociologyHealth in Rural Communities: Variation in Resource Utilization by Sexual Orientation and GenderProfessor Emily Kazyak
2017Amber Hadenfeldt, M.A.EnglishProfessor Maureen Honey
Sarah Walcott, M.A.Textiles, Merchandising, and Fashion DesignDomestic Interiors: Hand Needlework and the Cult of True Womanhood in 19th Century American QuiltsProfessor Michael James
Arden Hill, Ph.D.Creative WritingBloodwater ParishProfessor Grace Bauer
Kathleen Lacey, Ph.D.EnglishMaking Black Girlhood Visible in Late Twentieth-Century African American Women's ProseProfessor Maureen Honey
2016Katherine Hunt, Ph.D.Political ScienceCompeting for Attention: A Comparative Study of Social Movements and News Media in Abortion DebateProfessor Ari Kohen
Catherine Medici-Thiemann, Ph.D.HistoryShe Governs the Queen: Jane Dudley, Mary Dudley Sidney, and Katherine Dudley Hastings' Political Actions, Agency, and Networks in Tudor England Professor Carole Levin
Julia Moore, Ph.D.Communication StudiesFrom Childless by Choice to Mother: Performative and Subversive Negotiations of Race in Relational Communication about (Never) Having ChildrenProfessor Dawn O. Braithwaite
Jessica Rivera-Mueller, Ph.D.EnglishCultivating a Learning Stance toward Writing Teacher InquiryProfessor Shari Stenberg
Rachel Schmitz, Ph.D.SociologyOn the Street and On Campus: A Comparison of Life Course Trajectories among Homeless and College Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Young AdultsProfessor Kimberly Tyler
2015Jacqueline H. Harris, Ph.D.EnglishThe Buried Life of the Facts of Life: Female Physical Development in Nineteenth-Century British Coming-of-Age LiteratureProfessor Laura White
Mitchell Hobza, M.A.English“I am not your justification for existence”: Mourning, Fascism, Feminism and the Amputation of Mothers and Daughters in Atwood, Ziervogel, and OzickProfessor Amelia Maria de la Luz Montes
Mevi Hova, Ph.D.EnglishRedefining the Black Diaspora: Migration, Identity, and Gender Narratives in West African Diasporic Women’s FictionProfessors Kwakiutl Dreher and Kwame Dawes
2014Lesley Bartlett, Ph.D.EnglishPedagogy in Action: Teaching and Writing as Rhetorical PerformanceProfessor Shari Stenberg
Jaclyn Cruikshank Vogt, Ph.D. EnglishWomen Who Kill: Late Twentieth-Century American Women Writers Rewriting Mythologies of ViolenceProfessor Maureen Honey
Kris Gandara, Ph.D.EnglishIf I Were He: Tracing a Female Butch Lineage in American LiteratureProfessor Amelia Montes
Heather Jerónimo, Ph.D.Modern Languages and Literatures, SpanishForming Fam(other)hood: Queer Parenthood in 20th and 21st-Century Spanish Narrative and FilmProfessor Iker González-Allende
Sarah Jones, Ph.D.Communication StudiesNetworking Local-Global Advocacy: A Rhetorical Historiography of the International Women’s Tribune Centre (1972-1986)Professor Damien Pfister
Marianne Kunkel, Ph.D.EnglishAll the Girls Shout PleaseProfessor Kwame Dawes
Ashley Lawson, Ph.D. EnglishThe Self-Representing Muse: Autobiographical Productions of Women in Artistic PartnershipsProfessor Maureen Honey
Allysha Martin, Ph.D.Modern Languages and Literatures, SpanishConsuming Women: Cultural Subversion through Consumption in Late Twentieth-Century Women Writers’ Narratives in Latin AmericaProfessor José Eduardo González
2013Jill Allen, Ph.D. PsychologyThe Drive to be Sexy: Belonging Motivation and Optimal Distinctiveness in Women’s Self-SexualizationProfessor Sarah J. Gervais
Melissa Beran-Samuelson, Ph.D.Political ScienceIn Pursuit of Sustainable Good: Microfinance in IndiaProfessor Patrice McMahon
Krista Ferguson, Ph.D.EnglishSpilling My Heart Out for YouProfessor Jonis Agee
Neelee Glasco, M.A.English
Brandon Locke, M.A.HistoryThe Military-Masculinity Complex: Hegemonic Masculinity and the United States Armed Forces, 1940-1963Professor Patrick Jones
Rachel Schmitz, M.A.SociologyTentative Transitions and Gendered Pathways: Exploring the Revolving Door of Young Adult HomelessnessProfessor Kimberly A. Tyler
Garbiñe Vidal Torreira, Ph.D.Modern Languages, SpanishLa Mujer Frente al Espejo: La Representacion de la Edad de la Mujer en Cuentos de Escritoras Españolas del Siglo XXIProfessor Iker González-Allende
Brioney Zlomke, M.A.HistoryDeath Became Them: The Defeminization of the American Death Culture, 1609-1899Professor Jeannette Jones
2012Regina Flowers, M.A.Art HistoryMaterial and Motion: Phenomenology and the Early Work of Carolee Schneemann, 1957-1973Professor Marissa Vigneault
Megan Gannon, Ph.D.EnglishCumberlandProfessor Jonis Agee
Amber Harris Leichner, Ph.D.English“To Bend Without Breaking”: American Women's Authorship and the New Woman, 1900-1935Professor Maureen Honey
Sinduja Sathiyaseelan, M.A.EnglishNot Quite Nirvana: A Work of FictionProfessor Judith Slater
Steven Soebbing, Ph.D.Music-Vocal PerformanceThe Portrayal of Male Homoeroticism in Selected Early Classical OperasProfessor William Shomos
2011Kelly Tyrrell, M.A. Political Science
Cynthia Williams, Ph.D.GeographyLevels of Response in Experiential Conceptualizations of Neighborhood: The Potential for Multiple Versions of this Place ConstructProfessor David J. Wishart
2010Tamy Burnett, Ph.D.English“Just a Girl”: The Community-Centered Cult Television Heroine, 1995-2007Professor Kwakiutl L. Dreher
Kittie Grace, Ph.D.Communication StudiesContesting Sphere Boundaries Online: Private/Technical/Public Discourses in PCOS Discussion GroupsProfessor Ronald Lee
Rachel Robinson-Keilig, Ph.D.Educational PsychologyAn Investigation of Interpersonal Disruptions and Secondary Traumatic Stress Among Mental Health TherapistsProfessor Michael Scheel
2009Lyndie Christensen, M.A.SociologyHelp-seeking Outcomes of Subfecund Women: Medical Solution and/or Spiritual Coping
Jessykah Barron, M.S.Agricultural Leadership, Education and Communication
Morgan Beal, M.A.SociologyThe Street Environment of Homeless Young Adults: Consequences for Physical and Sexual Victimization
Shireen Ghorbani, M.A.Communication Studies
Beth Ribarsky, Ph.D.Communication Studies“I Don’t Kiss on the First Date”: Symbolic Convergence Through Women’s Ritualistic Watching of Reality-Dating TelevisionProfessors Dawn O. Braithwaite; Jody K. Kellas
Christine Rittenour, Ph.D.Communication StudiesCommunication and Shared Family Identity in Mother-in-law/Daughter-in-law Relationships: Implications for Relational Outcomes and Future Family FunctioningProfessor Jordan Soliz
Laura Roost, M.A.Political ScienceWomen’s Rights v. Citizenship Rights: Do Women's Rights Act as Trumps?
2008Amanda Cue, M.A. Family Science
Whitney Douglas, Ph.D.EnglishBecoming Feminists: Emotional Literacy and the Shaping of Identity in Feminist CommunitiesProfessor Amy Goodburn
Cassandra LeClair-Underberg, Ph.D.Communication StudiesCommunicatively Coping with Miscarriage: The Impact of Emotional Support and Narrative Coherence on Women’s Individual and Relational Well-BeingProfessor Jody Koenig Kellas
Annabel Tapia Marin, M.A.Family Science
2007HarmoniJoie Noel, M.A.SociologyA Mixed Methods Approach to Gendered Self-protective Perceptions and Behaviors
Jessica Rivera, M.A.EnglishIn Conversation: A Study of Female English Majors Writing in Multiple Contexts
Christine Stewart-Nuñez, Ph.D.EnglishSyllables RisingProfessors Hilda Raz; Barbara DiBernard
2006Karla Bergen, Ph.D.Communication StudiesWomen’s Narratives About Commuter Marriage: How Women in Commuter Marriages Account For and Communicatively Negotiate Identities with Members of their Social NetworksProfessor Dawn O. Braithwaite
Rachel Brown, M.A.SociologyTAMPAX: The Fun Tampon
Maureen Gallagher, M.A.Modern Languages and Literature, GermanHerrin im Hause: Gender and German Cookbooks, 1900-1945
Aaron Peeks, Ph.D.SociologyThe Sexual Experiences of Heterosexual College Males: Examining Components of Sexual AggressionProfessors Helen Moore; Hugh Whitt
2005Amber Harris Leichner, M.A.EnglishProfessor Maureen Honey
2003Rebecca Buller, Ph.D.Historical and Cultural GeographyIntersections of place, time, and entertainment in rural Nebraska in the late 19th and early 20th centuriesProfessor David J. Wishart