Bioengineering
Bachelor’s Degrees in Bioengineering

Senior Thesis

For an A.B. degree, a research thesis is strongly encouraged but not required; a thesis is necessary to be considered for High or Highest Honors. Additionally, a thesis will be particularly useful for students interested in pursuing graduate engineering research. 

In the S.B. degree programs, every student completes a design thesis as part of the required senior capstone design course (ES 100hf). During the year-long course students design and prototype a solution to an engineering problem of their own choice.

The guide below provides an overview of the requirement for a thesis in Biomedical Engineering:

Some recent thesis examples across all of SEAS can be found on the Harvard DASH (Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard) repository.

Biomedical Engineering (A.B.) Senior thesis examples:

  • Engineering a Functionalized Biofilm-Based Material for Modulating Escherichia Coli’s Effects in the Mammalian Gastrointestinal Tract
  • The MiR-130/301 Family Controls Cellular Survival in Pulmonary Hypertension
  • The Role of Cell Compaction in Radiation Therapy for Breast Cancer
  • Towards 3D Bioprinting of a Vascularized Convoluted Proximal Tubule
  • Biomechanical Therapy: A Soft Robotic Drug Delivery Device
  • The Clean Cut: Design, Synthesis, Assay Optimization, and Biological Evaluation of Compounds That Can Produce Double Strand Breaks in Deoxyribonucleic Acid
  • Dilating Health, Healthcare, and Well-Being: Experiences of LGBTQ+ Thai People (Joint with Women and Gender Studies)

Biomedical Engineering (S.B.) Senior thesis examples:

  • Predicting the Severity of Levodopa-Induced Dyskinesia of Parkinson’s Patients Through Template Matching
  • Development of 3D-Printed Bony Implants for Biomimetic Ear Canal Wall Reconstruction
  • Powassan Nanobody Diagnostic
  • Microfluidic-based In-droplet Transcript Barcoding Platform for Identification of T Cell Receptors and Target Epitopes
  • Adjustable stiffness splint based on principles of laminar jamming
  • Oil-Infused Silicone Tympanostomy Tube as a Novel Treatment of Recurrent Otitis Media
  • Cardiac Fibrosis-on-a-Chip: Fibrotic Cardiac Tissues on Biomimetic Nanofiber Scaffolds for Anti-fibrosis Drug Screening
  • In Vitro Model for the Placental Barrier
  • Multi-drug Device for Improved Diabetic Control
  • Correlation of Core to Skin Temperature for Temp-Sensing Wearable Device
  • Alginate Hydrogels for Topical Delivery of Ultra-High Concentrations of Antibiotics in Burn Wounds
  • Cellular Invasion into Three-Dimensional, RGD-Functionalized PTFE Mesh
  • Insulin transdermal patch
  • Handheld Device for Dermatological Diagnosis
  • Estimating Limb Propulsion

 

 

Engineering A.B. Thesis Extensions and Late Submissions

Thesis extensions will only be granted in extraordinary circumstances, such as hospitalization or grave family emergency. An extension may only be granted by the DUS (who may consult with thesis advisor, resident dean, and readers). For joint concentrators, the other concentration should also support the extension. To request an extension, please email your ADUS or DUS, ideally several business days in advance. Please note that any extension must be able to fall within our normal grading, feedback, and degree recommendation deadline, so extensions of more than a few days are usually impossible.

Late submissions of thesis work will not be accepted. A thesis is required for joint concentrators, and a late submission will prevent a student from fulfilling this requirement. Please plan ahead and submit your thesis by the required deadline.

 

Engineering A.B. Thesis Timeline

The timeline below is for students graduating in May. The thesis deadline for May 2025 graduates is Friday, March 28, 2025 at 2:00PM. For off-cycle students, a similar timeline applies, offset by one semester. The thesis due date for March 2025 graduates is Friday, November 22, 2024 at 2:00PM. Late theses are not accepted.

End of Junior year (6th semester):

Students often find a thesis supervisor by this time, and work with their supervisor to identify a thesis problem. Students may enroll in ES 91r for their next term (first semester of senior year) to block out space in their schedule for the thesis.

September of Senior year (7th semester):

All fourth year engineering A.B. concentrators are contacted by the Office of Academic Programs. Those planning to submit a senior thesis are requested to supply certain information via a brief thesis proposal form, including a summary of their project objectives and confirmation of the thesis advisor.

Mid-January:

A tentative thesis title approved by the thesis supervisor is required by the concentration.

Early February:

At least three readers are required for any Engineering A.B. single or joint thesis. The faculty advisor is one of the three readers. The student should provide the name and contact information for their additional two thesis readers, together with assurance that each individual has agreed to serve. Thesis readers are expected to be teaching faculty members of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences or SEAS. Please see the Engineering A.B. Thesis Reader section below for more information.

On the thesis due date:

Thesis due at 2pm. Late theses are not accepted. Electronic copies in PDF format should be delivered by the student to the advisor and two readers and to the submission email for your concentration (es-submit@seas.harvard.edu, ese-submit@g.harvard.edu, bme-submit@seas.harvard.edu) on or before the deadline. An electronic copy should also be submitted via the SEAS online submission system on or before the deadline. SEAS will keep this electronic copy as a non-circulating backup and will use it to print a physical copy of the thesis to be deposited in the Harvard University Archives. During this online submission process, the student will also have the option to make the electronic copy publicly available via DASH, Harvard’s open-access repository for scholarly work.

Contemporaneously, the readers will receive a rating sheet to be returned to the Office of Academic Programs before the end of classes

Late May:

The Office of Academic Programs will send readers' comments to the student in late May, after the degree meeting to decide honors recommendations.

 

Engineering A.B. Thesis Readers

For engineering A.B. students, thesis readers are chosen by the student, in consultation with their thesis advisor. It is the responsibility of the student to select their thesis readers and to ensure that the readers are committed. No readers are ever assigned. For Engineering only (non-joint) the thesis committee typically consists of the advisor and two more faculty from FAS/SEAS. At least two of these must be from SEAS. For joint concentrators the student must still have at least three readers, two of whom must be from SEAS.

 

Senior Thesis Submission Information for A.B. Programs

Senior A.B. theses are submitted to SEAS and made accessible via the Harvard University Archives and optionally via DASH (Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard), Harvard's open-access repository for scholarly work. Please note that the thesis won't be published until close to or after the degree date. During this submission process, the student will also have the option to make the electronic copy publicly available via DASH. Basic document information (e.g., author name, thesis title, degree date, abstract) will also be collected via the submission system; this document information will be available in HOLLIS, the Harvard Library catalog, and DASH (though the thesis itself will be available in DASH only if the student opts to allow this). Students can also make code or data for senior thesis work available. They can do this by posting the data to the Harvard Dataverse or including the code as a supplementary file in the DASH repository when submitting their thesis in the SEAS online submission system.

Whether or not a student opts to make the thesis available through DASH, SEAS will provide an electronic record copy of the thesis to the Harvard University Archives. The Archives may make this record copy of the thesis accessible to researchers in the Archives reading room via a secure workstation or by providing a paper copy for use only in the reading room.  Per University policy, for a period of five years after the acceptance of a thesis, the Archives will require an author’s written permission before permitting researchers to create or request a copy of any thesis in whole or in part. Students who wish to place additional restrictions on the record copy in the Archives must contact the Archives directly, independent of the online submission system. 

Students interested in commercializing ideas in their theses may wish to consult Dr. Fawwaz Habbal, Senior Lecturer on Applied Physics, about patent protection. See Harvard's policy for information about ownership of software written as part of academic work.