2019 University Honors Graduates
Congratulations to our 2019 University Honors graduates!
On April 24, 2019, Honors faculty, members of the University administration, and family members came together to congratulate the Honors graduates with a Banquet and Medallion Ceremony. The event was held in the Wilkinson Center Ballroom and the Honors Thesis posters of all the graduates were on display for attendees to peruse. Christian Hales, an April 2019 Honors Graduate from the Music Performance program, performed an exquisite rendition of “Meditation from Thais” by Julies Massenet on the double bass and was accompanied by Zac Adamson on the piano.
The keynote address was given by April 2019 Honors graduate Brenna DeLynn Scadden. She spoke about the transformative experiences herself and others experienced in the Honors Program and how they are now prepared to excel in their various fields. Dr. Spencer Magleby, Associate Dean and Director of the Honors Program, congratulated the Honors graduates and awarded the students their 2019 University Honors medallions.
The next afternoon, April Honors graduate David Kastner gave the Student Representative address at the University Commencement Exercises in the Marriott Center titled “The Ultimate Triumph of Truth”. The video and transcription of his speech can be seen on BYU Speech’s website.
Our Honors 2019 graduates exemplify the standards of the BYU Honors Program and are moving on to great things. Of the graduates, 72% will be pursuing graduate degrees at various academic institutions including MIT, Columbia, Stanford and various prestigious medical and dental schools across the nation. The remaining 28% of the graduates are entering the workforce in primarily the government and business sectors.
Photos of individual graduates and their families can be seen here through our BYU Honors Program Facebook page.
Honors Theses are available through BYU’s Scholars Archive.
| Name | Major | Thesis Title |
| Austin Ahlstrom | Mathematics | Computational Regiospecific Analysis of Brian Lipidomic Profiles |
| Ryan Anderson | Mechanical Engineering | Investigating the Impact of Taper and Aspect Ratio on a Stalling Wing Using a Corrected Vortex Lattice Method |
| Emily Ashcraft | Communications | The Impact of Media on the Formation of Government in Scotland |
| Chayce Baldwin | Psychology | Seeing the World through Humility-Tinted Lenses: Exploring Social Cognitive Explanations for Outcomes of Humility |
| Shannon Barham | Dietetics | Program coordinators experiences with introducing parent-focused health lessons to a child-centered nutritional supplement program: An exploration of recent programmatic changes in Liahona |
| Barrett Burgin | Media Arts Studies | Father of Man: An Exploration of the Afterlife in Cinema Creative |
| Megan Chan | Human Resource Management | The Negative Impact of Positive Stereotyping in Workplaces - Relationship Between Positive Stereotypes, Perceived Competence and Perceived Potential for Leadership |
| Dallin Colgrove | Mechanical Engineering | Steering System for SAE Baja |
| Jane Cox | Mathematics & German Studies | The Mosquito and the Rose: Similar Themes in the Writings of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Kobayashi Issa |
| Jack Davis | Economics | Evaluating the Impact of Federal R&D Spending on Patent Registration: A NASA Case Study |
| Ethan Davis | Economics & French Studies | Examining the Effect of Immigration on the Welfare State and Populism |
| Tyler Durfee | Political Science | Identity and Political Realignment Among Hispanic Voters |
| Jonathan Dutson | Computer Science | User Attitudes About DUO Two-Factor Authentication at BYU |
| Alex Farnsworth | Biochemistry | Nonlinear Optical Characterization of Solids |
| Rachel Finlayson | Political Science | Let Us Reason Together: Female Voices in Religious Deliberation |
| Erin Fitzgerald | Family life | How Maternal Gate-keeping and Media Conflict Affect Media Monitoring in a Co-parental Context |
| Paul Flake | Microbiology & Spanish Studies | Further Understanding of Bacteriophages that Infect the Bacterial Family Enterobacteriaceae |
| Chance Fox | Exercise Science | Frost 450, A Novel Microtubule Targeting Agent: Resistance and Cross-Resistance in an Ovarian Cancer Cell Line |
| John Garbero | Sociology | Familiarity with Homosexuality "Changes Hearts": What Lay Members and Former Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Think About LGBP Issues |
| Melissa Grannis | European Studies & Spanish | Midwifery Practices in the United Kingdom and Soviet Union from the 1920s to 1950s |
| Brady Hales | Mechanical Engineering | Implementation of Augmented Reality in S.A.E Mini-Baja |
| Christian Hales | Music Performance | I Hear Dead People: Addressing the Discord Between Museum Culture and Contemporary Classical Music |
| Moremi Hamblin | Public Health | Epistasis of Alzheimer's Disease |
| Sarah Hamner | Public Health | Occupational Exposures in Relation to Alzheimer's Disease Mortality |
| Katrina Hillam | Neuroscience | "Where Was I?" Linguistic Reprocessing in Distracted Reading |
| Teya Jensen | Communications & Russian | ЛОЛ - Comparing Expressions of Humor Used in Memes by Russian and English Speakers |
| Jordan Jones | Anthropology | Games and Social Organization Among Korean Students |
| David Kastner | Biophysics | Computational Modeling of Peptides Containing Non-Standard Amino Acids |
| Jennifer Kimball | History | Legal Supremacy: The Translation Between Tsarist and Communist Constitutions and Criminal Codes |
| Ryno Kruger | Psychology | Oxytocin Genotypes and Social Affiliation: A Model of the Genetic Underpinnings Behind Social Bonding |
| Elvira Correa-Lazaro | Political Science | Human Trafficking and Economic Development |
| Eric Lenhart | Applied Physics | Ripple in the Sand: How Air Flow Forms Self-Organizing Patterns on Particulate Surfaces |
| Jaron Lundwall | Chemical Engineering | Multidisciplinary Design Optimizations for Solar-Regenerative High-Altitude Long Endurance Aircraft |
| Jessica McClintock | Genetics, Genomics & Biotechnology | Genetics Beyond the Classroom: An Analysis of Undergraduate Students' Understanding of Genetics and Attitudes Towards Clinical Genetics |
| Ian McLaughlin | History | "The Paternal Care of a Patriot Legislature"-Legislative Instructions and the Contested Boundaries of the Political Nation in Late Eighteenth-Century Ireland |
| Emily Menden | Computer Science | Computationally Modeling the Trophic Cascade in Yellowstone National Park |
| Patrick Merkle | Political Science & Classical Studies | A Comparison of Military Council Throughout the Classical Epic Tradition |
| Mitchell Merrill | Spanish | Quality of Hispanic Oral Health in the U.S: Perceptions of Dentists and a Call for Improvement |
| Jacob Newman | Mathematics | On The Persecution of the Salvadoran People |
| Michael Nixon | Strategic Management | Fight, Flight, or Freeze: Human Responses in a Business Strategy Environment |
| Alex Oldroyd | English | Kekuaokalani: An Historical Fiction Exploration of the Hawaiian Iconoclasm |
| Amanda Parsons | Neuroscience | Sex Differences in Ethanol Modulation of Dopamine Release in the Mesolimbic Reward System |
| Lucas Pinto | Bioinformatics, Neuroscience | A task-based model of NMDA-mediated glutamatergic synaptic dysfunction and its relation to antipsychotics |
| Sarah Polhill | English | Honor and Benefit in John Milton's "Paradise Regained." |
| Brenna Scadden | Communication Disorders | The Effects of Multi-Tiered Systems of Language Support on Oral Language, Reading Comprehension, and Writing in Second and Third Grade Students in India |
| Emily Schill | Communication Disorders | The Price of Public Land: An Analysis of Visitor Responsiveness to National Park Entrance Fees |
| Hunter Searle | Computer Engineering | Adaptable ICSHK with irregular QAM Constellations |
| Amanda Solomon | Middle Eastern Studies- Arabic | Sexual and Gender-Based Violence Against Arab Women Refugees: Yazidi Minority in Northern Iraq |
| Elina Stewart | Nursing | Student Perspectives on Working in Interdisciplinary Teams to Improve mHealth |
| Taylor Topham | English | "The Right Use of Reason": Fairy Tales, Fantasy, and Moral Education in Peter Parley's Annual |
| Merrill Warnick | Mathematics & Economics | Divisibility Properties of Coefficients of Modular Functions of Genus Zero Levels |
| Hanel Watkins | Neuroscience | Inhibitory Neural Mechanisms in Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Consumption |
| Kelsey Wight | History | "A Time of Discord, a Time of Unity: The Religious Persecution, and Changing Traditions of Nuns in Reformation England" |
| Elizabeth Young | Communications Disorders | Using Electropalatography to Analyze Intra-Speaker Variability in German Second Language Fricative Production |