To recap: Coughlin is the author of an impressive 330-page master's thesis on the subject which was recently accepted by the Defense Intelligence University.

CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: The Coughlin affair

Buck, a graduate student then working on a photography project in Egypt for his master's thesis, met Maree, a 23-year-old Egyptian veterinary student, in Mahalla.

CNN: Freed student uses Twitter to demand translator's release

Buck was working on a multimedia project on Egypt's "new leftists and the blogosphere" as part of his master's degree thesis.

CNN: Student 'Twitters' his way out of Egyptian jail

The 1995 novel "Mysterious Skin" began as Scott Heim's master of fine arts thesis at Columbia University.

NPR: 'Mysterious Skin' Chronicles the Aftermath of Abuse

Computers invaded my life in 1985, when my mother, a master's student at UTEP, bought a RadioShack Tandy TRS-80 4P to pound out her thesis on the negative transfer of speech sounds from second to first language.

ENGADGET: Growing Up Geek: Christopher Trout Alt