Shows / Burn Your Draft
Burn Your Draft
“Burn Your Draft” is a podcast exploring the year-long senior thesis experience at Reed College, an independent liberal arts and sciences college in Portland, Oregon. Each episode showcases a senior or recent graduate and interviews them about their thesis: what is it, why did they do it, and what comes next. This podcast is a joint production of Reed students, staff, and alumni, and was made possible by a gift from Seth Paskin '90. New episodes released every other week during the academic…
Episodes
- Burn Your Draft
#85: What Makes Fentanyl Different? with Anahi Sanchez Marcial '25, Neuroscience
What makes fentanyl so uniquely potent and deadly compared to other opioids? In this episode, neuroscience major Anahi breaks down her thesis research…
- Burn Your Draft
#84: Tiny Plastic Eaters with Patricio Palomino '25, Biology
Patricio's thesis year was inspired by ongoing research in Professor Jay Mellies' lab investigating groups of bacteria which can break down plastic. Biology…
Burn Your Draft#83: Frameworks of Identity with Haydyn Davila '26, Sociology
Burn Your Draft is back with interviews from the class of 2025 and the class of 2026. We're also welcoming our new student producer, Ivy Liu, this fall. In…
Burn Your Draft#82: Adapting to New Majors and New Models with Alyssa Gorkin '24, Psychology
While Alyssa came to Reed planning to study economics and eventually go to law school, she ended up writing a psychology thesis on social anxiety, drinking…
Burn Your Draft#81: Memorials and Cultural Memory with Emilie Kelly '25, Anthropology
Ace sits down with Emilie Kelly '25 to discuss Berlin’s war memorial Neue Wache, or New Guardhouse, the centerpiece of Emilie’s anthropology thesis. Following…
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#80: Discovering Strychnine in the Lab and in the Archive with Lucas Forshee '25, Chemistry
Ace chats with Lucas Forshee about his thesis on the molecule strychnine, which, despite being poisonous, was used as a stimulant for athletes in the 1904…
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#79: Bleakness and Hope in McCarthy’s Blood Meridian with Caleb Stanco '25, English
In this episode, we hear from Caleb about the central theme of violence in McCarthy’s 1985 novel Blood Meridian and its relevance to modern times. Responding…
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#78: A Horticultural Approach to Restorative Justice with Rhiannon Weakley '24, Psychology
In today's episode, we hear from Rhiannon about restorative justice, therapeutic horticulture, and how their intersection can present alternatives to the…
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#77: Student Movements in Lebanon with Lucas Allam '25, History
In this episode, Lucas joins our host and producer Ace to explore the history of student protests in 20th-century Lebanon. Together, they unpack why these…
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#76: What Makes a Good Birth? with Liz Organ '24, Anthropology
The idea for Liz Organ's thesis, "The Makings of a Good Birth," emerged from a moment of doubt about career paths and a deep frustration with how often women…
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#75: Aquaculture Adaptations with Hannah Goodman ’24, Sociology
In this episode, we hear from Hannah, a sociology major whose thesis journey crossed disciplines but always circled back to climate change. Her project draws…
- Burn Your Draft
#74: Writing the Weird with Claire Navratil ‘25, English
In today’s episode, our producer Ace sits down with Claire, an English major with a creative writing concentration, to discuss weird fiction, the Reed…
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#73: Afterlives of the American Frontier Myth with Henry Kendrick '24, English
In this episode, we hear from Henry, an English major whose thesis journey took a few unexpected turns: from exploring Pacific Northwest regionalism to diving…
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#72: A Vacant Walmart in Albuquerque with Arianna Aguirre '24, Anthropology
Arianna focused on the impacts of the closure of a Walmart in her hometown of Albuquerque for her thesis in the anthropology department. She also tells us…
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#71: Bags of Chemistry with Amelie Andreas '24, Biochem and Molecular Biology
Amelie started out in the biology department at Reed because she wanted to study bacteria and living things, but then she got a chance to start learning from…
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#70: Value of a Tony with Emma Bramson '23, Economics
Emma's economics department thesis explored the effect that Tony awards have on the consumer demand for Broadway shows. Reed community members can read Emma's…
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#69: Inventing the Future with Ocean Chamberlain '23, Comparative Literature
We're back for the 2025–26 school year after taking a hiatus last spring. Today, Ocean shares his thesis experience with us which was focused on studying…
Burn Your Draft#68: Ellison's Invisible Man with Juno Kerelis '24, English
Juno Kerelis '24 was the third student podcast producer on Burn Your Draft, and we're so happy to get to speak to them on the other side of their time at Reed…
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#67: Antimicrobial Innovation with Josie Bicknell '24, Biology
Josie wrote a pharmaceutical development thesis about looking for a new way to develop antibiotics. She also tells us about her interest in biology and…
Burn Your Draft#66: Psychosexual Gothic Romance with Jordan Kappler '24, English
Jordan spent a year writing an analytical thesis on Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca, which Jordan calls a "psychosexual gothic romance novel" in the introduction…
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#65: Carb-Conscious Planes with Aroon Das '24, Economics
Aroon tells us a bit about airline economics under potential carbon taxes, wanting to become an entrepreneur, and deciding to come to Reed because it seemed…
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#64: Return if Found with Courtland Dorris '24, Anthropology
Courtland talks about her thesis work on the federal law called the National American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, the controversies surrounding it…
- Burn Your Draft
#63: Confounding Variables with He Bai '24, Mathematics
He Bai '24 tells us about how she chose math and statistics as her fields at Reed, what drew her to Reed in the first place, and how the Squidward Constant…
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#62: A Russian Emigre Poet with Nina Gopaldas '24, Comparative Literature
Burn Your Draft is back from summer break! Check out this interview with Nina Gopaldas '24, whose thesis involved translating poetry by a Russian refugee named…
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#61: ESG Signaling with Tina Bardot '23, Environmental Studies
We've got one last interview for summer and then we take a break until school starts back up in the fall. Check in with Tina about corporate ESG…
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#60: Mildly Morally Wrong with Ashley Ledbetter '24, Philosophy
Do you want to listen to this episode? Or do you want to want to listen to this episode? Ashley tells us a bit about first and second order desires in her…
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#59: Performing Gendered Speech with Joray Foster-Wexler '23, Linguistics
Joray tells us about the joy of digging into academic papers in their fall semester, and the fun of using the software in the linguistics lab to analyze the…
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Thesis Mini #1
Producer and current senior, Juno Kerelis, talks about organization, and how being responsible for writing a year-long thesis differs from more structured…
- Burn Your Draft
#58: Snowbirds in South Beach with Isaac Walton '24, Anthropology
Isaac graduated in fall 2023 as a spring/fall grad in the anthropology department. His thesis was titled "Aging in The Sun: An exploration of the Jewish…
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#57: Title IX Perceptions with Francesca Tangherlini '22, Sociology
We're excited to welcome Francesca back to the podcast! Francesca was our first student producer, named the podcast, and was integral as we were still figuring…
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#56: Breaking Ancient DNA with David Rothfels '23, Chemistry/Classics
David studied archaeometry at Reed through an ad hoc major in the chemistry and classics departments (classics at Reed is now known as Greek, Latin, and…
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#55: Oregon's Black Exclusion Laws and a Salem Church with Peri Joy Long '23, Religion
Peri Joy planned for the work of her thesis year to center on race, religion, and the history of Oregon, and her writing focused on archives related to a 19th…
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#54: Indigenous Modernity along the Columbia River with Sofie Larsen-Teskey '23, Anthropology
Sofie gets excited about the opportunity she had to write an ethnographic thesis which explored relationships between the Indigenous peoples of the Columbia…
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#53: Philosophy of Science with Betsy Hoekstra '20, Philosophy
Betsy spent her thesis year thinking and unthinking what it's possible to know about science, and how science can be used and mis-used in the field of…
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#52: Post-Reconstruction Struggles of Chinese Women with LiLi Siedare '23, History
LiLi's thesis focused on the struggles that Chinese women faced in the U.S. after the Civil War, and the damage done to Asian American immigrants by the Page…
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#51: A Martian Immigrant with Henry Belman '23, English
Henry discusses finding his thesis topic in the comics character of J’onn J’onzz, the Martian Manhunter, and accomplishing the rare feat of turning in a thesis…
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2023 Summer Announcement
Burn Your Draft is on break for the summer. Our next season will begin in the fall with our new host and producer, Tommy Schacht '25. Thanks to Albert Kerelis…
- Burn Your Draft
#50: Liminal Love with Stephanie Shu '23, Chinese
Stephanie's thesis examines female-female love as depicted in Republican era Chinese fiction, and includes a full original translation of one of the stories…
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#49: Speaking Gender with Montreal Benesch '22, Linguistics
Montreal tells us about their study on the use of a particular phonetic feature of American English by a handful of genderfluid students at Reed, and also…
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#48: Retelling the Ramayana with Anjali Reddy '22, English
Anjali spoke with Albert about her year studying the epic tale of the Ramayana and related texts that examine the story through both gender and caste. Reed…
Burn Your Draft#47: Stress in Sports with Ben Schwartz '23, Psychology
Ben used his thesis to examine connections between aggressive sports and stress. Reed community members can read Ben's thesis, "Stress, Aggression, and…
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#46: Knots and Unknots with Erika Beserra '22, Mathematics
Take a circular hair tie and set it on a table. That's an "unknot". Pick it up, cut it, twist it into a knot and then reconnect the cut ends, and now you've…
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#45: Crip Time in Higher Ed with Hannah Card '22, Sociology
Albert talked with Hannah about her thesis exploring how students with chronic illnesses manage their time while in college by studying Reed students. Reed…
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#44: Crime Fighting Time with Will Knight '22, English
Dive into comic book studies and some great advice on how to approach the thesis with Will in Albert's first interview for the podcast. Reed community members…
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#43: Assertions with Joseph Puglisi Clark '22, Philosophy
This is a podcast, and that was an assertion. Joseph spent a year exploring the nature of assertions like this in his thesis (which was mostly written after…
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#42: Studying Borges with Natalya Hill '22, Religion
Natalya and Amelie talk about how Natalya found Reed and became a religion major. This is also our last episode of the semester. We'll be back after winter…
Burn Your Draft#41: Understanding Climate Graphs with Rishi Krishnamurthy '22, Psychology
Why do two people look at the same graph and walk away with different interpretations? Rishi spent a year looking into some reasons for why this happens when…
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#40: Taiwanese Political Parties with Seamus Boyle '22, International Policy Studies
Seamus's thesis focuses on the fall of Taiwan's Kuomintang (KMT) party, and the impacts this party has had in Seamus's own family background. Reed community…
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#39: Virtue Ethics and Restorative Justice with Louise de Picciotto '22
Louise talks about learning to accept criticism, and how an influential class got her interested in Aristotle. Reed community members can read Louise's thesis…
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#38: Teaching About Climate Change with Kieran Wharton '22, Environmental Studies
When Kieran learned that high school chemistry teachers reportedly teach climate change at the lowest rate among STEM teachers, he decided to study this for…
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#37: Exploring Fictional Worlds with Kavi Subramanian '20, Comparative Literature
Kavi wrote a thesis that centered around writing two case studies examining the fictional worlds of a 1994 Nintendo game called EarthBound, and a television…
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#36: Social Labs with Leila Shokat '21, Anthropology
Leila spent a pandemic year remotely studying the members and activities of a lab that had quickly pivoted to study COVID-19 at the beginning the pandemic…
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Summer Announcement 2022
Burn Your Draft is taking a break for the summer and will be back in fall 2022 with our new student producer and host, Albert Kerelis ’24. We’ll have a bunch…
- Burn Your Draft
#35: Community in Hum 110 with Max Teaford '22, Linguistics
Nearly all Reedies take Hum 110, the year-long humanities conference that serves as an introduction to the Reed education. Max decided to go back to Hum 110 to…
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#34: Post-Soviet Nationalism with Demeter Anderson '21, Anthropology
Amelie and Demeter talk about Demeter's thesis on nationalism, gender, and culture in Kazakhstan. Reed community members can read Demeter's thesis, “Blossoming…
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#33: Two Dimensional Ice Cream Cones with Evan Griggs '22, Mathematics
Evan Griggs '22 wrote a thesis in the math department, and talks about his path from community college to the math department at Reed. Reed community members…
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#32: Pigs and Plantations with Ema Chomsky '21, Environmental Studies
Ema Chomsky '21 wrote her thesis on the environmental history of Haiti by focusing on U.S. interventions in the country. Reed community members can read Ema's…
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#31: Fleshy Bodies and Techno Foucault with Soroa Lear '21, Comparative Literature
From dancing for nine hours to techno in Berlin to applying critical theory to bodies in movement, Soroa talks about her pandemic year of diving deeply into…
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#30: Writing the Russian Revolution with Misha Lerner '21, Russian
Join Misha and Amelie as they talk about Misha's thesis on Leon Trotsky's theory of revolutionary language and symbolism. You'll also learn a bit about Misha's…
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#29: Republicanism and Blackness with Anesu Ndoro '21, Anthropology
Anesu spent his pandemic thesis year investigating Black conservative Republicans in the U.S., and examining how ideas of family connect Black conservatives…