Honors Capstone Research Topics 2027

Saint John’s Preparatory School’s uniquely personal Aspire2Excellence curriculum encourages students to be the architect of their own experience and future. It goes beyond the ordinary coursework and exams. This week our Aspire2 Excellence honors diploma candidates had a major milestone- they completed their massive capstone research projects! These capstone documents range between 20-30 pages and can have more than 6,000 words.

Aspire2Excellence Curriculum & Honors Diploma
Our distinctive approach to education challenges students to be deeply creative thinkers, intellectual
risk-takers, experiential learners, and imaginative problem solvers. Our students have opportunities to
develop a personalized learning plan made up of core courses, academic distinctions and merits. Saint John’s Prep provides them with the flexibility and encouragement to discover who they are and what they love. Prep students are eligible to graduate with honors if they earn distinctions in three different subject areas, maintain a cumulative GPA of 3.75 or higher, and complete a capstone research project.

The A2E Capstone Project
A key component of the work to earn an honors diploma from Saint John’s Prep is an interdisciplinary faculty-advised Senior Capstone project based on a combination of research/original creative work, writing, and presentation. The work will be shared in presentations during our Aspire 2 Excellence Scholarship and Community Day on Friday, May 14, 2027.  

Below is a list of the 2027 research topics for the twenty-four seniors who are working towards earning an A2E Honors diploma. These topics are original to each student. They were selected by the student, based on their own special interests. No teacher, advisor, or parent assigned these topics.

2027 Capstone Topics

Carter Burke
Bias in everyday life: how do accent bias and accent-based stereotypes influence everyday perceptions and interactions?

Margaret Duffy
How does the theft of famous artwork change its cultural and economic value, and what qualities do famous stolen artworks share?

Season Edwards
How has the over-usage of African American Vernacular of English harmed Black communities and people?

Aoife Finan-Thoms
Does the environment and the study of it have intrinsic value, meaning a value independent of a valuer?

Milo Harkins
How can anomalies in base-ten number systems teach us about the role of numbers in expressing language?

Naji Hassan
How does the Affordable Care Act compare to the Japanese national health system in providing affordable diagnostic testing for low-income citizens?

Aksel Hennesy Newman
How does the censorship of queer education mirror the trial and persecution of Oscar Wilde?

Zach Henry
How did changes in American patriotism affect changes in NASA’s budget during the Nixon and Ford administrations (1969-1976) versus the Obama administration (2009-2016)?

Hardy Hong
How did religious and social factors contribute to the shift from traditional polytheistic worship toward Christian dominance in the Roman Empire?

Richard Huang
To what extent did the Chinese Communist Party and the Republican Party influence interpersonal trust among low-income individuals from 2018 to 2022, and how much control did individuals have over the development of their own trust?

Cerys John
How are elements of Arthurian tradition evoked in political myths that legitimize authority, from 13th Century England to 20th Century United States?

Luis Kwak
How might experiences of progress and social support in Elden Ring relate to coping with depressive symptoms?

Michael Lamm
How do efforts by wealthy countries to fight pollution affect inequality in developing nations?

Vicky Le
How are expectations and neurodevelopment associated with recovery from untreated depression in adolescence?

Ryan Mahowald
In what ways is geoengineering worth the reward of mitigating the effects of global warming?

Abigail Malikowski
In what ways do the differing English translations of Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis affect the overall meaning as well as influence of the text?

Lindsy Millan
How did the Willowbrook Hepatitis Studies reshape the standards of informed consent? And how did those ethics reflect how people with special needs were treated in the 20th century?

Lilah Mohs
To what extent do the physiological and mental breathing practices of yoga and freediving parallel the respiratory techniques used in competitive swimming, and how do these shared mechanisms enhance a swimmer’s self-awareness, emotional resilience, and mental regulation?

Ahona Mukherjee
To what extent does linguistic profiling targeting marginalized American dialects connect with one’s societal status, and how do those positions in our civilization reinforce and perpetuate socioeconomic inequality in the United States?

Jay Park
How are brain structural changes of Alzheimer’s Disease related to known patterns of speech impairment? And how can early Alzheimer’s Disease speech patterns be effectively utilized to detect early stages of the disease?

Sam Ringwald
How has music artist Ren Gill modernized the genre of murder ballads to address current societal issues?

Hendrick Schlude
How have themes in country music encouraged or discouraged an environment of extreme political polarization in the United States from 2016 to present?

Edmond Zeng
To what extent can philosophical theories of beauty and empirical studies of aesthetic perception explain the recurring characteristics of mathematical beauty?

Rosina Zhou
Factors in the shift from Newtonian to Quantum Physics: Curie, Einstein, Bohr, Heisenberg, and Schrödinger

The Saint John’s Prep Class of 2026 had twelve honors graduates. With twenty-four scholars, this will be the largest group of honors diploma recipients from our school.

Saint John’s Prep is an independent college prep day and boarding school guided by Benedictine values. Students in grades 6-12 from diverse backgrounds immerse themselves in a learning environment surrounded by the natural beauty of our pristine woods and lakes shared with Saint John’s University, in Collegeville, MN. We prepare students for lives of purpose, service, and achievement in a global society.

Saint John’s Prep is proud to announce that we are recognized by Niche.com as the best Catholic high school in Minnesota in the 2027 Best School Rankings. We’ve held this title since 2018.