SPS Distinguished Thesis Awards
The SPS Graduate Programs Distinguished Thesis Award recognizes excellence in research and writing and honors students whose papers demonstrate the highest caliber of master’s level work our students produce. Winners are nominated by their thesis committee in each of the SPS graduate programs. The Distinguished Thesis Award is awarded annually. SPS commends the winners, listed below.
2022/23
MASTER OF ARTS IN LITERATURE
Rachel Cole, MALit, March ‘23
Sinking Boats Against the Current: A Deleuzian Reading of Temporality in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby
MASTER OF ARTS IN PUBLIC POLICY AND ADMINISTRATION
Zach Kagley, MPPA, March ‘23
Collective Bargaining in Public Policy: Unions, Management, and Regulation
MASTER OF ARTS IN SPORTS ADMINISTRATION
Daniel L. Kim, MSA, June ‘22
Discrimination in Modern South Korea: Gauging the Influence of Confucianism in Women’s Sports
MASTER OF ARTS IN WRITING/MASTER OF FINE ARTS IN PROSE AND POETRY
Holly A. Stovall, MFA, June ‘23
Evaluations
MASTER OF SCIENCE IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS
Devanshi Wadhwa, MSIS, June ‘23
Generative Artificial Intelligence Framework for Assessment of Corporate Sustainability Risks and Contributions
MASTER OF SCIENCE IN PREDICTIVE ANALYTICS
Charles Robb MacDonald, MSPA, December ‘22
Evaluating Methods for Class Imbalanced Learning on High-dimensional Low Variance Data to Predict 1-Year Mortality in Cardiac Surgery
2021/22
MASTER OF ARTS IN LIBERAL STUDIES
Heidi Gross, MALS, June '22
Regional Cultures and Covid-19: A Case Study of Three Midwestern States
MASTER OF ARTS IN LITERATURE
Paul Finnegan, MaLit, August '21
Proust's Machine: A Deleuzian Reading of the Vinteuil Sonata
MASTER OF ARTS IN PUBLIC POLICY AND ADMINISTRATION
Lisa Twarog, MPPA, June '22
The Relationship Between Universal Basic Income Programs and Environmental Sustainability
MASTER OF ARTS IN WRITING/MASTER OF FINE ARTS IN PROSE AND POETRY
Jonathan Jones, MFA, June '22
Penned
MASTER OF SCIENCE IN DATA SCIENCE
David Lobue, MSDS, March '22
Network Centralities and Subgraph Communities Among Political Financial Exchanges
MASTER OF SCIENCE IN INFORMATION DESIGN AND STRATEGY
Kelly Cutler, IDS, June '22
The Art and Science of Digital Marketing
MASTER OF SCIENCE IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS
David Schatz, MSIS, June '22
Considerations for the Development of Business Intelligence Tools: Analysis into the Efforts of Established Software Companies
2020/21
MASTER OF ARTS IN LITERATURE
Jennifer Coakley, MALit, June '21
"A Complicated Position for a Woman": Marriage and the Dissenting Voice in the Minor Novels of Thomas Hardy
MASTER OF ARTS IN PUBLIC POLICY AND ADMINISTRATION
Julia Epplin-Zapf, MPPA, March '21
Assessing Tax Increment Financing Efficacy as a Public Financing Tool for Public Parks in Chicago, Illinois
Katheryn Meagher, MPPA, June '21
U.S. Public Pension Reform: Overcoming Underfunding Through Increased Accountability
MASTER OF ARTS IN WRITING/MASTER OF FINE ARTS IN PROSE AND POETRY
Jameka Williams, MFA, June '21
American Sex Tape ™
MASTER OF SCIENCE IN DATA SCIENCE
John Hawthorne Smith, MSDS, June '21
Who You Gonna Believe, Me or Your Lying Eyes? An Epidemiological Examination of Fake News and a Ranked Solution
2019/20
MASTER OF ARTS IN LIBERAL STUDIES
Oliva Sulita, MALS, March '20
Taking Back Boystown: Homonormativity, Commercialization, and Racial Surveillance in Chicago’s Gayborhood
MASTER OF ARTS IN PUBLIC POLICY AND ADMINISTRATION
Caroline Poole, MPPA, June '20
Drug-free Degrees: Determining the Impact of the Aid Elimination Penalty on Urban Community College Students through a Comparative Time-Series Analysis
Hani Shamat, MPPA, June '20
Equitable Bikeshare for Equitable Cities: Recognizing and Removing Barriers to Bikeshare in Pursuit of Transit Equity
MASTER OF ARTS IN WRITING/MASTER OF FINE ARTS IN PROSE AND POETRY
Allison Epstein, MFA, March '20
Feather and Frost
MASTER OF SCIENCE IN DATA SCIENCE
Jeremy Walker, MSDS, August '20
Measuring the impact that domain knowledge in the form of simple ontology structures has on predictive modelling processes in the context of academic library virtual reference services
2018/19
MASTER OF ARTS IN LIBERAL STUDIES
Steve Birkhauser, MALS, March '19
Born to Choose Their Own Paths Over the Middle Ground of Colonial North America: Mobility Among the Women of the Native and European Montour Family 1682–1780
MASTER OF ARTS IN LITERATURE
Brooke Kennedy, MALit, June '19
Female Limitations Living among Urban Borders: An Explication of Femininity in Sandra Cisneros’s The House on Mango Street and Gwendolyn Brooks’s Maud Martha
MASTER OF ARTS IN PUBLIC POLICY AND ADMINISTRATION
Matthew Frappier, MPPA, March '19
The Effects of Federalism and Intergovernmental Relationships on the Management of Public Lands in the United States: A Case Study of Public Lands Management in Utah
MASTER OF ARTS IN SPORTS ADMINISTRATION
Danielle M. Wysocki, MSA, March '19
Predicting Bulls and Blackhawks Pre and Postgame Ratings to Maximize NBC Sports Chicago Profitability
MASTER OF ARTS IN WRITING/MASTER OF FINE ARTS IN PROSE AND POETRY
Joshua Bohnsack, MFA, March '19
Country I Come From
MASTER OF SCIENCE IN DATA SCIENCE
Tim Kiely, MSDS, December '18
The Spatially-Conscious Machine Learning Model: Leveraging Spatial Analysis to Boost the Accuracy of Real Estate Sales Predictions
MASTER OF SCIENCE IN HEALTH INFORMATICS
Richard White, MHI, August '18
Artificial Intelligence-Augmented Exclusion of Coronary Atherosclerosis on CCTA for Chest Pain: Initial Performance and Technical Issues
2017/18
MASTER OF ARTS IN CREATIVE WRITING
Caitlin Garvey, MCW, August '17
The Mourning Report
MASTER OF ARTS IN LIBERAL STUDIES
Judy Ann Kulchawik, MALS, August '17
Restraining the Mustang and Strangling the Dove: Portraits of the Wages of Patriarchy
MASTER OF ARTS IN LITERATURE
Amy Lindstrom Bowden, MALit, June '18
"From one workman to another": The Mutual Portraiture of Dorothy Brett and Katherine Mansfield
MASTER OF ARTS IN PUBLIC POLICY AND ADMINISTRATION
Desiree Carr, MPPA, June '18
White Trash American Hillbillies: White Rural Poverty in America
MASTER OF SCIENCE IN REGULATORY COMPLIANCE
Elona Liko Hazizi, MSRC, June '18
Significance and Prevalence of Incidentally Detected Breast Lesions on Chest, Cardiac and Abdominal MRI
2016/17
MASTER OF ARTS IN LIBERAL STUDIES
Mary O'Malley, MALS, August '16
The Queer Affects of Jane Bowles
MASTER OF ARTS IN PUBLIC POLICY AND ADMINISTRATION
Bradley Grams, MPPA, June '17
Pollution Prevention in Environmental Management Systems: The Extent and Pollution Reduction Value of Voluntary Reporting by Manufacturing Firms to the U.S. Government
MASTER OF ARTS IN WRITING/MASTER OF FINE ARTS IN PROSE AND POETRY
Patricia Crisafulli, MFA in Creative Writing, June '17
The Cross of Siena
2015/16
MASTER OF ARTS IN LITERATURE
Christine Hoffman, MALit, March '16
Violations of Empire: Rape and the Struggle for Power in E.M. Forster's A Passage to India and Paul Scott's The Jewel in the Crown
MASTER OF ARTS IN PUBLIC POLICY AND ADMINISTRATION
Michael Baron, MPPA, March '16
The United States and European Union: How to Achieve a Collaborative Competitive Advantage in Energy Security without Undermining Environmental and Public Health Sustainability
MASTER OF ARTS IN SPORTS ADMINISTRATION
Sara Crandall, MSA, December '15
Analysis of the Current Sponsorship Landscape in the Endurance Industry & an Endurance Property Sponsorship Model & Activation Timeline
MASTER OF ARTS IN WRITING/MASTER OF FINE ARTS IN POETRY AND PROSE
Daniel Fliegel, MFA in Creative Writing, June '16
Road, River, Forest
MASTER OF SCIENCE IN REGULATORY COMPLIANCE
Christopher Blair, MSRC, April '16
The Peer Review Process: Trends and Proposed Changes to the Process
2014/15
MASTER OF ARTS IN WRITING/MASTER OF FINE ARTS IN PROSE AND POETRY
Ignatius Aloysius, MFA in Creative Writing, June '15
Fishhead Soup
MASTER OF ARTS IN LIBERAL STUDIES
David C. Heyman, MALS, March '15
A Brief History of Southwestern Wisconsin 1800-1900: Challenges to American Frontier Historiography
MASTER OF ARTS IN LITERATURE
Barbara Egel, MALit, June '15
While soule and body are together found: Strategies for Protecting Female Subjectivity in Lady Mary Wroth's Pamphilia to Amphilanthus
MASTER OF ARTS IN PUBLIC POLICY AND ADMINISTRATION
Shannon Ferguson, MPPA, June '15
Regulation of Foreign Funding to NGOs: Evaluating the Effects on Comparative Human Rights Policies
MASTER OF ARTS IN SPORTS ADMINISTRATION
Jabarri Reynolds, MSA, December '14
Study Abroad and the Student Athlete
MASTER OF SCIENCE IN CLINICAL RESEARCH AND REGULATORY ADMINISTRATION
Byron K. Yip, MS in Clinical Research and Regulatory Administration, June '15
Bicuspid Aortic Valve in the Adult: Risk Factors for Ascending Aortic Dilatation and Potentials for Novel Predictive Tools
MASTER OF SCIENCE IN REGULATORY COMPLIANCE
Natalia Brooks, MSRC, March '15
Comparing and Contrasting Belarusian and Ukrainian Drug Development Policies with U.S. and Swedish Regulations, with a Specific Focus on Clinical Trial Regulation
2013/14
MASTER OF ARTS IN WRITING/MASTER OF FINE ARTS IN PROSE AND POETRY
Anthony Opal, MFA in Creative Writing, June '14
Others
MASTER OF ARTS IN LIBERAL STUDIES
Joshua Sledge, MALS, August '13
How Much Is Too Much? : An Examination of the Moral and Economic Influences that Shape Usury Regulation
MASTER OF ARTS IN LITERATURE
John C. Kerpan, MALit, March '14
Of No Fixed Abode: Mr. Leopold Bloom, Elusive Hero of James Joyce's Ulysses
MASTER OF ARTS IN PUBLIC POLICY AND ADMINISTRATION
Jesse C. Kibbey, MPPA, June '14
Externalities, Bias and Mobilization: Challenges in Climate Policy and Politics
MASTER OF SCIENCE IN CLINICAL RESEARCH AND REGULATORY ADMINISTRATION
Zhidong Ma, MS in Clinical Research and Regulatory Administration, March '14
Medical Device Regulations in China: Knowing the Difference, Needs, Challenges, and Risks Before Entering the Chinese Medical Device Market
2012/13
MASTER OF ARTS IN WRITING/MASTER OF FINE ARTS IN PROSE AND POETRY
Julianne Hill, MFA in Creative Writing, June '13
A Story in which No One Drowns: Thoughts on the Persistence of Life
MASTER OF ARTS IN LIBERAL STUDIES
John Lindsay Fraser, MALS, June '13
Using Film to Foster Faith
MASTER OF ARTS IN LITERATURE
Mary Carol Ghislin, MALit, June '13
Wordsworth's Pelagian Inheritance
MASTER OF ARTS IN PUBLIC POLICY AND ADMINISTRATION
Wendy Dittmer, MPPA, June '13
Dodd-Frank Section 1502: The Case of the Legislative Maneuvering, Policy Entrepreneurship, and Stakeholder Influence Used to Marry Financial Reform and Conflict Minerals
MASTER OF SCIENCE IN CLINICAL RESEARCH AND REGULATORY ADMINISTRATION
Laura Baker, MS in Clinical Research and Regulatory Administration, June '13
Integration and Implementation of Comparative Effectiveness Research (CER): Next steps needed to support infrastructure development of CER in Academic Medical Centers
MASTER OF SCIENCE IN QUALITY ASSURANCE AND REGULATORY SYSTEMS
Jason Studer, MS in Quality Assurance and Regulatory Systems, June '13
Expediting the Time between Preclinical Studies and Phase 1 - A Model for Overcoming Development, Regulatory, and Quality Challenges
2011/12
MASTER OF ARTS IN WRITING/MASTER OF FINE ARTS IN PROSE AND POETRY
Andrew Schuyler Dikson, MFA in Creative Writing, June '12
Shaw Blue
MASTER OF ARTS IN LIBERAL STUDIES
Ann Kogen, MALS, December '11
Through a Narrative Lens: Mental Health Across Cultures
MASTER OF ARTS IN LITERATURE
Elaine Joy Basa, MALit, June '12
Encounters with Memory and Effect: A Reading of Patricio Guzman's Chile, Obstinate, Memory
MASTER OF ARTS IN MEDICAL INFORMATICS
David Mishler, MA Medical Informatics, June '12
HIPYBOT: A Weak Artificial Intelligence HIPAA Chatterbot
MASTER OF ARTS IN PUBLIC POLICY AND ADMINISTRATION
Megan A. Boyle, MPPA, June '12
Coping with the Effects of Climate Change: Illinois Organizations' Challenges and Strategies
MASTER OF ARTS IN SPORTS ADMINISTRATION
Margaret Louise Stigler, MSA, June '12
Statistics at the Gate: Assessing Major League Baseball Attendance 2007-2011
MASTER OF SCIENCE IN CLINICAL RESEARCH AND REGULATORY ADMINISTRATION
Debra G. Dice, MS in Clinical Research and Regulatory Administration, June '12
How Non-Accrual in Clinical Research (NACR) Impacts Optimal Utilization of IRB Resources at Northwestern University
MASTER OF SCIENCE IN QUALITY ASSURANCE AND REGULATORY SYSTEMS
Michelle Matijevic, MS in Quality Assurance and Regulatory Systems, June '12
Contamination Control Plan: A Proactive Approach to Maintaining Control in a Non-Sterile Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Facility
2010/11
MASTER OF ARTS IN WRITING/MASTER OF FINE ARTS IN POETRY AND PROSE
Dolores de Souza Guedes, MA in Creative Writing, June '11
Come and Go
Sarah Jenkins, MFA in Creative Writing, June '11
Break, Carry
Virginia Smith, MFA in Creative Writing, June '11
One Voice May Survive the Other
MASTER OF ARTS IN LIBERAL STUDIES
James Paetsch, MALS, December '10
Place Race: The Sifting and Sorting of American Cities
MASTER OF ARTS IN LITERATURE
Christina Bello, MALit, June '11
Whoever Dies with the Most Toys Wins: Consumerism and the American Dream in Nelson Algren's The Man with the Golden Arm
Katherine Brannon, MALit, June '11
Unknowable Code: The Detective and Dystopia in the Works of Raymond Chandler, Thomas Pynchon and Jean-Luc Godard
Sarah Buchmeier, MALit, June '11
So Strangely Unlike Us: Nineteenth-Century British Travel Narratives and the Orientalization of America
Anthony Gudwien, MALit, December '10
Hamlet's Perpetual Present
Carolyne Hurlburt, MALit, June '11
Avant La Lettre, Apres La Mort: The Post-Structural Sensibility of Oscar Wilde
MASTER OF ARTS IN PUBLIC POLICY AND ADMINISTRATION
Renee Burton, MPPA, June '11
For Sale or Lease: An Examination of Commercial Airport Privatization in the United States
Mari Franks, MPPA, June '11
The Changing Role of the Nurse: The Impact of the HITECH Act on Nurses & Nurse Leaders
Michael Gwinn, MPPA, June '11
A diamond in the Rust: Pittsburgh's Example for the Post Industrial Economy
MASTER OF ARTS IN SPORTS ADMINISTRATION
Camilio Suarez-Batar, MSA, June '11
A Culture of Electric Speed and the Coming of a Second Hot Rod Age: How Auto Racing Elevated the Internal Combustion Engine and Will Champion the Electric Car
MASTER OF SCIENCE IN CLINICAL RESEARCH AND REGULATORY ADMINISTRATION
Kathleen Prendergast, MS in Clinical Research and Regulatory Administration, June '11
Development of Metabolic Syndrome during the First Year Following Heart Transplantation and the Association of Cardiac Allograft Vasculopathy
MASTER OF SCIENCE IN MEDICAL INFORMATICS
Katrina Worrell, MSI, December '10
Nurse informaticist: A bridge in the cultural divide between information technology and healthcare
MASTER OF SCIENCE IN QUALITY ASSURANCE AND REGULATORY SCIENCE
Priyanka Bhutani, MS in Quality Assurance and Regulatory Science, December '10
Critical Analysis of the European Union's Abbreviated Regulatory Pathway for Biosimilars
2009/10
MASTER OF ARTS IN WRITING/MASTER OF FINE ARTS IN PROSE AND POETRY
Roya Khatiblou, MA in Creative Writing, June '10
We Ride Together: Stories
MASTER OF ARTS IN LIBERAL STUDIES
Gregory Cena, MALS, June '10
A Hot Time in Old Town: The Emergence and Decline of the Hippie Counterculture in Chicago's Old Town Neighborhood during the 1960s
Maxine Flack, MALS, December '09
Self-Imposed Sumptuary Law for the Nineteenth-Century Urban Environment: Social Stratification through Material Consumption in France and the United States
MASTER OF ARTS IN LITERATURE
Amber Allen, MALit, June '10
Hidden in Plain View: The Experience of Celebrity in the Works of Nathaniel Parker Willis and Sara Payson Willis (Fanny Fern)
Eliot Jarbe, MALit, December '09
Merleau-Ponty in the Shadow of our Ontological Demise: A Phenomenology of Apocalypse
Harold Shipman, MALit, June '10
Why Should I Believe a Word You Say?: the Aesthetics of Truth in the Graphic Memoir
MASTER OF ARTS IN PUBLIC POLICY AND ADMINISTRATION
Christina-Mai Just, MPPA, June '10
U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission: Protecting the Public or Practically Powerless
Christopher Scanlon, MPPA, June '10
Electricity Restructuring: Muddling Through the Variable Utility of Disjointed Incrementalism
MASTER OF SCIENCE IN COMPUTER INFORMATION SYSTEMS
Curticine Doyle, MSCIS, December '09
Anticipating User Needs in Emerging Technology: Creating the Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Administration Laboratory Manual
MASTER OF SCIENCE IN QUALITY ASSURANCE AND REGULATORY SCIENCE
Christopher Czyzewski, MS in Quality Assurance and Regulatory Science, June '10
Medical Device Supplier Quality: Improvements for a Global Economy
Jessica Sheriff, MS in Quality Assurance and Regulatory Science, June '10
Value Stream Mapping as Applied to a Quality System Process
2008/09
MASTER OF ARTS IN WRITING/MASTER OF FINE ARTS IN POETRY AND PROSE
Nathanael Zoba, MA in Creative Writing, December '08
Breathword's Birth Weight
MASTER OF ARTS IN LIBERAL STUDIES
Dean Savage, MALS, June '09
Fiumanism: The Relationship of D'Annuzian Fiume and Fascism Reconsidered
MASTER OF ARTS IN LITERATURE
Lisa Stojak, MALit, June '09
Mrs. Dalloway and the Absurdity of Sanity
MASTER OF ARTS IN PUBLIC POLICY AND ADMINISTRATION
Daniel Brown, MPPA, June '09
Feeding America's Children in the National School Lunch Program
MASTER OF ARTS IN SPORTS ADMINISTRATION
Andrew Van Cleve, MSA, June '09
Have Game? Will Travel!
MASTER OF SCIENCE IN MEDICAL INFORMATICS
Thomas Kmiecik, MS in Medical Informatics, June '09
Integration of Genetic and Familial Data into Electronic Medical Records and Healthcare Processes
2006-07
MASTER OF ARTS IN WRITING/MASTER OF FINE ARTS IN POETRY AND PROSE
Matt Wood, MA in Creative Writing, '07
Through an Unlocked Door
MASTER OF ARTS IN LIBERAL STUDIES
Natalie Banovitz, MALS, '07
Advertisers as Ideologues: Redefining the Women's Sphere in the Wake of the Industrial Revolution
MASTER OF ARTS IN LITERATURE
Jennifer Higgs, MALit, '07
Bloom's Colonial Harem: Constructing the Fantastical Other in James Joyce's Ulysses
MASTER OF ARTS IN PUBLIC POLICY AND ADMINISTRATION
Anna Onley, MPPA, '07
Management and Optimization of Technological Change Processes in Public Service Organizations
MASTER OF ARTS IN SPORTS ADMINISTRATION
Robert Lazaro, MSA, '07
Selling Ice to Eskimos: Major League Soccer's Struggle to Attract Hispanic Fans
2005/06
MASTER OF ARTS IN CREATIVE WRITING
Charles Fiore, MCW, '06
MASTER OF ARTS IN LIBERAL STUDIES
Mary Smessaert, MALS, '06
MASTER OF ARTS IN LITERATURE
Stephanie Heerdt, MALit, '05
MASTER OF ARTS IN PUBLIC POLICY AND ADMINISTRATION
Chrissy Mancini, MPPA, '06