All master’s theses completed through the Graduate College of Western Michigan University since 2012 have been entered into ScholarWorks. Some may be embargoed or restricted by the authors and may be only available from on-campus computers. Print copies from earlier years are available through interlibrary loan. We have a few digital copies of earlier years. If you have any questions, please contact wmu-scholarworks@wmich.edu.
Theses/Dissertations from 2023
Nyugodjék Békében: Expressions of Change in a Midwest Hungarian-American Cemetery, Emily Powell
Theses/Dissertations from 2022
Uplifting Voices: Implementing a Heritage-Based Civil Rights Program in the United States Forest Service, Amanda Jo Campbell Crawford
Theses/Dissertations from 2020
Opening Old Bottles in Search of New Wine: The Story of Imperial Modernity in Qatar with Special Reference to Gender Inequality, 1980-1994, Jassim Al-Nasr
Those Beyond the Walls: An Archaeological Examination of Michilimackinac’s Extramural Domestic Settlement, 1760-1781, James Cain Dunnigan
Theses/Dissertations from 2019
An Examination of Flintlock Components at Fort St. Joseph (20BE23), Niles, Michigan, Kevin Paul Jones
Virtual Realities in Archaeology: Employing the Oculus Rift for Artifact Visualization and Education, Jeffrey R. Nau
Theses/Dissertations from 2018
Evaluating the Efficacy of Convolution Neural Networks in Age at Deat Estimation Using 3D Scans of the Pubic Symphyseal Face, Melissa A. Brown
What Provides for Me as I Provide for Others? A Study of Homeless Shelters Employees Within Kalamazoo, Michigan, Melanie Jezior
Fat Bias and Culture Shock: Psychosocial Adjustments in Post-Obesity Life, Scott Thomas MacPherson
Theses/Dissertations from 2017
Biological Stress Indicators among Historically Documented Populations (1913-1935): An Analysis of Labor through Entheses and Joint Disease, Anna Paraskevi Alioto
Guided by the Spirits: The Meanings of Life, Death and Youth Suicide in an Ojibwa Community, Seth Allard
Archaeological Evidence of Architectural Remains at Fort St. Joseph (20BE23), Niles, MI, Erika K. Loveland
Trading to Drink and Drinking to Trade: Assessing Alcohol Trade and Consumption in Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century New France, Cara A. Mosier
A Study of Empathy in the Context of Religious Identity in the United States, Kiana Sakimehr
Minecrafting Archaeology: An Experimental Pedagogy for an Eighteenth-Century French Trading Post in Niles, Michigan, James B. Schwaderer
Women’s Role in their Reproductive Process: The Effects of Authoritative Knowledge and Biomedical Interventions on the American Birth Experience, Shannon Sheffey
Anything but Race: Content Analysis of Racial Discourse, Christopher Smith
Alaska Native Artifacts; Eskimos and Aleuts of the Bering Sea Rhythm of the Sea Collection, Marcia Sue Taylor
Overcoming Ideology: Examining the Tension between Sex Work and Anti-Human Trafficking Advocacy, Emily R. Williams
Theses/Dissertations from 2016
Egyptian Mummy CT Scan Analysis and a Comparison of Midwest Museum Practices for the Grand Rapids Public Museum, M. Kate Peterson
Shifting Gears of Safety: Women Truck Drivers Experience Added Safety Concerns Over the Road, Stephanie A. Sicard
Interaction between Human Experience, Landscape , and Coffee Production in the Blue Mountain Region of Jamaica, Shohei Yoshida
Theses/Dissertations from 2015
Breastfeeding with the Bronson Mothers’ Milk Bank, MaryKate Bodnar
Patterns in Faunal Remains at Fort St. Joseph, a French Fur Trade Post in the Western Great Lakes, Joseph Hearns
“Men of Good Timber”: An Archaeological Investigation of Labor in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, Aaron Howe
The Taphonomic Factors on Human Remains inside Chullpas: Marcajirca, Peru, Samantha Lauren Lininger
Canning Jars and Patterns of Canning Behavior: A Study of Households on the Hector Backbone, New York. 1850-1940, Jayne Ann Michaels
Theses/Dissertations from 2014
Owning Our Food System: Urban Community Gardening and Local Food Movements, Paige A. Edwards
"Race Becomes Biology": Co-occurring Oral and Systemic Disease as Embodiment of Structural Violence in an American Skeletal Sample, Rieti G. Gengo
Piles of Salt: A Narrative of Civil War, Refugeeism, and Sociopolitical Transnationalism, Patrice M. Niltasuwan
Theses/Dissertations from 2013
The Age of Consumption: A Study of Consumer (and Producer) Behavior and the Household, Stephen A. Damm
An Assessment of Public Outreach with Children and Educators Conducted by the Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project, Erica A. D’Elia
Silence, Declaration, and Circumstance: Rethinking Women’s Roles in Saudi Arabia, Ashleigh Elizabeth Dunham
“Common Sense” Versus “Good Sense”: Marginalization in Agriculture, Mark W. Hoock
American Beisbol: How Cultural Differences Help Explain Different Approaches to Game Playing, Derek Jackson
Refugee Reflections: A Focus on the Lived Experiences of African Refugees Resettling in Michigan, Diane Roushangar
Closer to Nature: Exploring Environmental Summer Camp Experience Through Ethnographic Fiction, Courtney Morgan Schofield
La oficina de la mujer (OMM): A Conduit for Social Empowerment among Women in a Small Guatemalan Lake Community, Rachel Volk
Theses/Dissertations from 2012
Online Anonymity and its Effects on Virtual Community: A Microdiscursive Analysis of the Teachers.net Public Chatboard, Katyn M. Adams
Religious Rx: The Roles of Faith and a Religious Community in the Management of Mental Illness, Autumn Shroyer-Osborn
Archaeological Investigations of Control and Autonomy at the Colony Farm of the Michigan State Asylum, 1880-1950, Alison Thornton
Precious Metal: Late Bronze Age Copper Production on Cyprus and its Effects on Social Stratification and Merchants in the Levant, Jason Edward Wilhelmi
Theses/Dissertations from 2011
The Preconditions of Farm Abandonment: Agricultural and Domestic Labor, Dustin William Conklin
The Role of Language in Maintaining Ethnic Identity among Dutch-Americans in Michigan, Geertruida Friso-Engeln
Nutrition and Stature: The Residents of the Island of Gotland, Sweden Killed in the Battle of Wisby, 1361, Michelle A. Miller
Theses/Dissertations from 2010
Fort St. Joseph 1.0: Creating a Comprehensive Information Management Scheme for the Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project, Erin Claussen
Theses/Dissertations from 2009
Blues Identities: The Lives of Sound, Affect, and Identity In The Kalamazoo Blues Community, Jonathan G. Hill
"Giving Face" to Immigrant Sentiments in the United States: An Analysis of Online Organizations and Advocates in Southwest Michigan, Amber N. Hyland
The Excavated Bead Collection at Fort St. Joseph (20BE23) and Its Implications for Understanding Adornment, Ideology, Cultural Exchange, and Identity, LisaMarie Malischke
Spondylolysis Prevalence in Two Prehistoric Point Hope, Alaska Communities and Its Relationship to Whaling, Mary Elisabeth R. Timm
Environmental Influences on the Activity Patterns of a Captive Group of Spider Monkeys (Ateles Fusciceps Rufiventris), Erin Michelle Van Regenmorter
Geology and Biostratigraphy of the Freighter Gap Region, Great Divide Basin, Southwestern Wyoming, John Mark Van Regenmorter
Theses/Dissertations from 2008
An Investigation of Kavilorai: A Hero Stone Site in the Nilgiri Mountains of South India, Jacob Landon Bach
An Arab American, Ali Y. Bazzi
Living and Dying on the Margins: A Journey into the Culture of Pink and Black Women’s Narrative Accounts of Breast Cancer, Cleothia Gill
A Geophysical Survey of Fort St. Joseph (20BE23), Niles, Michigan, Daniel P. Lynch
Single Muslim Young Adults: Negotiating Identities, Religion And Desire, Zarinah El-Amin Naeem
Black Women, Beauty, and Labor: Towards an Archaeology of African-American Women in Indianapolis, Indiana, Genesis M. Snyder
Perils on the High Seas: The Effects of Submersion and Containment on Human Decomposition in Saltwater, Celene Aundrea Sotkowy
Ferro Ingenio: An Archaeological and Ethnohistorical View of Labor and Empire in Colonial Porco and Potosi, Brendan J. M. Weaver
Theses/Dissertations from 2007
An Analysis of the Woodland Ceramics from Galum Crossing (Site 21C4-29): An Early Late Woodland Occupation in the Southern Illinois Interior, Gabrielle Aberle
An Unequal Consumption? Sex and Gender Differences in Tuberculosis, Sarah K. W. Avink
The Gyftakis Site: A Reevalutation of a Middle Woodland Site After 30 Years, Michael R. Fournier
Building a Predictive Model for Paleo Indian Archaeological Site Location Using Geographic Information Systems, Zachary Jaime
Breaking the Be Nice Rule: Direct Action Community Organizing, Adriana Rosas
Theses/Dissertations from 2006
The Analysis of Ceramic Symbolism from the First Street Site in Barbados, Aya Hashimoto
Vertebral Age Estimation: An Examination of the Seventh Cervical, Seventh Thoracic, and Fourth Lumbar Vertebrae, Holly Hernandez
Incisal Dental Microwear of the Prehistoric Point Hope Communities: A Dietary and Cultural Synthesis, Kristin L. Krueger
A “Southern Tradition?”: Stockcar Racing as Contextual Tradition, Patrick A. Lindsay
Occupational Stress and Slavery: Evidence from Bridgetown, Barbados, Sarah Muno
Neoliberalism, Hegemony and Community Imaginings, Boone W. Shear
Linear Enamel Hypoplasia and Dental Disease: Implications of Health and Lifestyle Behaviors of the Urban Enslaved from Two Burial Grounds in Bridgetown, Barbados, Jennifer Yamazaki
Theses/Dissertations from 2005
Bone Density Testing as an Early Detection Devise For Anorexia Nervosa and Osteoporosis in Pre-Adolescent and Adolescent Girls, Kelle L. Brooks
A Bioarchaeological Investigation of Two Unmarked Graveyards in Bridgetown, Barbados, Christopher Crain
Crafting Culture at Fort St. Joseph: An Archaeological Investigation of Labor Organization on the Colonial Frontier, Brock A. Giordano
A New Early Eocene Mammalian Fauna from the Great Divide Basin, Southwestern Wyoming: Vertebrate Paleontology, Paleoclimatology, and Biostratigraphy, Edward M. Johnson
The Trials and Tribulations of Eliciting American Indian Voice, Amber Madoll
People Without Voice: Perceptions of Social Bias Against Muslims in the United States, Dhiren Patel
Patterns of Cortical Growth as Indicators of Population Health: An Exploratory Analysis of Subadult Remains from the Tell Abraq Site, UAE, Jessica L. Rhodes
Theses/Dissertations from 2004
Athletic Amenorrhea: Prevalence and Awareness among Female Athletes at Western Michigan University, Michele R. Chupurdia
Fat is a Masculine Issue Too: An Autoethnographic Exploration of Masculinity withing Fat-Culture, Juan Ignacio Florencia
The Steamboat Industry in Brownsville, Pennsylvania: An Ethnohistorical Perspective on the Economic Change in the Monongahela Valley, Marc Nicholas Henshaw
An Intensive Surface Collection and Intrasite Spatial Analysis of the Archaeological Materials from the Coy Mound Site (3LN20), Central Arkansas, William Glenn Hill
Understanding Ethno-Nationalism: Sikh Diasporic Imaginings in Southwest Michigan, Rory G. McCarthy
A Comparison of Human Femoral Neck Cortical Bone: Walkers vs. Non-Walkers, Meghan M. Moran
Who Are "The Japanese"?: Negotiation of Identity Among Nikkei in Brazil, Chihiro Nagasue
Makuya: Japan, Religion and Modernity, Joshua Stanley Nowicki
Theses/Dissertations from 2003
Going with the Flow: Browridge Morphology Among Demes of Modern and Archaic Homo Sapiens, Randall E. Case
The Making of Jordanian American National Identity in Michigan, David C. Chaudoir
Evicting A Neighbor: Health, Power and Discourse in Vieques, Puerto Rico, Nelson Class-Meléndez
The Avifauna of Bawwab al-Ghazal: A Zooarchaeological Analysis, Elissa A. Kinzelman
Style, Ethnicity, Technology, and Practice: Analysis of a Material Culture Assemblage from the Paleoindian-Archaic Cultural Transition in the Northwestern Great Lakes, Matthew R. Laidler
Can Status Be Revealed? Dichotomous Cultural and Physiological Markers of Social Differentiation in Two Pre-Pottery Neolithic B Sites in the Levant, Monika L. Trahe
Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder: Psychopharmatherapy and Burdensome Women, Cassandra L. Workman
Theses/Dissertations from 2002
The Urban Landscape of Health, Hygiene, and Social Control: The Development of Municipal Services in Battle Creek, Michigan, Jared Lee Barrett