Research projects that I have served as first and second reader or have had a significant advising role during my position at the Claremont Colleges:

First Reader theses and Summer Research Fellows:

1.      Use of stomach contents and stable isotopes to determine changes in diet of short-tailed shearwaters in the Bering Sea from 1997 to 1999

Maire Cahoon

2.      A comparison of coral O¹⁸/O¹⁶ isotopic records between El Niño/La Niña Southern Oscillation Events

Sungbum Kim

3.      The Effects of Sugar on the Foraging Activity of the Invasive Argentine Ant (Linepithema humile)

Sarah Covington (BEST SENIOR THESIS !! Pitzer College, 2002; conducted at the Bernard Field Station)

4.      The influence of fire ecology on rodent diversity and abundance in the Inyo National Forest

Anne Baptiste

5.      The relationship between human population size and foraging sites used by Great Blue Herons among the San Juan Islands

Katie Willcox (Keck Summer Research Recipient)

6.      The role of aldehydes produced by diatoms in reducing embryonic development in sea urchins

Normalena Rios (Mellon Research Recipient)

7.      An experimental set-up to determine if it is viable to maintain coral and their symbiotic zooxanthellae in the Keck Science Center, Joint Science Department, The Claremont Colleges

Annika Noreen (Keck Summer Research Recipient)

8.      Is there a significant relationship between mangrove and fish diversity among several Australian mangrove systems?

Kate Watabayashi

9.       Associations between seabirds and cetaceans in the Southern California Bight during 1996-1998

Flor Mendez

10.  Is the Maori muttonbird harvest sex-biased:  Development of a DNA technique to sex sooty shearwater chicks-(BEST SENIOR THESIS, CMC, 2003!!)

Matthew Kushnir

11.  An analysis of the geographic structure of sooty shearwater (Puffinus griseus) populations from the eastern and western Pacific Ocean using the mitochondrial gene, cytochrome b

Martha Hauff

12.  Does the concentration of the aldehyde 2-trans-4-trans decadienal vary in differing experimental environments?

Normelena Rios

13.  Genotypic and Phenotypic Change in Coral Zooxanthellae with depth:  Clade C SSCP-determined genotypic changes analyzed in relation to zooxanthellae density, chloropyll concentration, and lipid biomass in Pocillopora damicornis

Annika Noreen

14.  Refinement of a DNA technique to sex sooty shearwaters:  What to do when primers are ineffective? 

Leah Dahl (Summer Mellon Grant)

15.  A DNA technique to determine gender bias among beachcast sooty shearwaters in Monterey Bay, California

Emily Englert

16. Gender bias among Ashy Storm-Petrels in the Southern California Channel Islands

      Amita Patel

Second reader theses:

1.      Trophic Assemblage of Fish across Lighthouse Reef, Republic of Palau

Emadch Beck

2.      Interannual Signatures of El Niño and La Niña from Oxygen Stable Isotope Records in Pacific Corals

Eric Rhee

3.      A study of treatment options for men with osteoporosis

Anchi Liao

4.      Defining the parallels between Chimpanzees and Humans:  An Ethical Consideration for Using Primates in Biomedical Studies

Alice Mills

5.      Chronology of Moa Extinction

Stephanie Hoffman

6.       The effects of sex and incubation history on the embryonic development of boat-tailed grackles (Quiscalus major)

Jessica Wray

7.      Obesity and Type II Diabetes Mellitus

Rohit Buttan

8.       Isolating and characterizing conditional mutations of Prp43 in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Erin Jones

9.      An Analysis of the Environmental Management of Chile’s Copper Mines

Katie Barnett

10.  Heavy metal contaminants in bat guano as a proxy for environmental contamination

Phillip Thompson

11.  The Evolution and Possible Applications of Sonar in Odontocetes

Emily Wrase

12.  Sexual Selection in Zebra Finches

Courtney Treweek