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DU Home > News & Events > Media Releases > December 2004

MEDIA RELEASES

Contact
Jessica Mackinnon
jmack@dom.edu
(708) 524-6289

Student Named Lincoln Laureate Award-Winner

Thushanthi Shanila Perera, a resident of Des Plaines and a senior at Dominican University, has been named one of 50 Lincoln Laureate Award-winners in the State of Illinois. The Student Laureate Medallion is given each year for excellence in curricular and extracurricular activities to students who have overcome obstacles in order to achieve their educational goals. Dominican University is proud to have Ms. Perera represent it with this prestigious honor.

Ms. Perera arrived in the United States from Sri Lanka in November 2000 in search of an American college education. She worked two jobs to earn the money for college tuition and was accepted to Dominican University on her 20 th birthday, almost a year after arriving in the States. She enrolled in English as a Second Language classes to improve her negligible language skills while tackling the rigorous coursework required for her major in biology-chemistry. During her first semester, although she had never written papers in English before, she earned a B+ in her English Composition class and a grade point average of 3.86 on a 4.0 scale. At the end of her first year, she was named to   Dominican University Dean’s List as well as the national Dean’s List.

Ms. Perera’s academic success over the past three years has been matched by her initiative as a laboratory assistant, a tutor, a teaching assistant and an advisor to incoming undergraduates, and by her participation in such campus activities as Science Club, in which she served as secretary for two years, and as a lector and Eucharistic minister in Sunday liturgies.

Last summer, Ms. Perera conducted research with the biochemistry department at the University of Notre Dame. The strength of her research project led to an invitation to present her results at last month’s Fifteenth Annual Symposium for Undergraduates in Science, Engineering and Mathematics at Argonne National Laboratory.

Ms. Perera has received numerous accolades during her three years at Dominican, including the Dorothy Reiner Mulroy Scholarship and nominations for the St. Catherine Medal, an award given annually by the National Catholic Honor Society, and the Golden Star Award, an annual award given by Dominican to students who have supported the university mission through co-curricular involvement and leadership activities.

In nominating Ms. Perera for the Lincoln Laureate Award, her physics professor, Dr. Gerald Gulley, claimed that she is represents “what any country would have in mind when sending representatives to the United States.”

In a letter congratulating Ms. Perera on her award, Dominican University President Donna Carroll wrote, “This award highlights your relentless quest for learning. You set your course, determined to overcome any obstacle, from your arrival from Sri Lanka in November of 2000 to today. Beyond your academic achievements, the generosity of your spirit is always evident, supporting the University community through service to your fellow students. Likewise I want to commend you for your summer internship at the University of Notre Dame. You bring great distinction to the university and I am so proud you are Dominican.”

Founded in 1901, Dominican University is a comprehensive, coeducational Catholic institution offering bachelor’s and master’s degrees. Dominican offers 50 undergraduate academic programs through the Rosary College of Arts and Sciences and 15 graduate programs through the Graduate School of Library and Information Science, the School of Business, the School of Education, the Graduate School of Social Work, and the Institute for Adult Learning. In the 2005 issue of America’s Best Colleges, U.S. News & World Report again ranked Dominican University in the top tier of Midwest master’s level universities and as a “best value” for the seventh consecutive year.