Former GPC student Jean Bastia’s lilting accent is a calming balm to the patients he sees while working as a charge nurse in two metro Atlanta hospitals. His lingual patois of French, Creole and Cajun is a sound that also has graced the airwaves in Haiti, where his catchy tunes are being used as part of a nationwide campaign to eradicate the spread of cholera and other diseases. Bastia’s story was featured in the Fall 2013 issue of GPC's magazine, The Chronicle. Now his music and work to help educate others is highlighted in a video by the Better Health for Haiti organization. View video.

DeKalb Early College Academystudents Phillip Polite, Mikyas Bezabih and Lee McArthur, who had the top three science projects during the year, presented their findings to visiting Georgia Perimeter College professors Diane Lahaise, biology, and Melissa Schoene, chemistry, and Cynthia Lester, director of STEM Initiatives at GPC. Lehaise, Schoene and Lester judged the DECA’s Science Fair Poster Contest. GPC’s Office of Early College Programs supported the science fair using funds from a RGK Foundation grant awarded to the DECA program. 

Recent graduate Tshibambe Tshimbombu has received multiple acceptances and scholarships to transfer to Ivy League schools. The 2014 Georgia Perimeter President’s Award recipient entertained offers and awards totaling more than $150,000 from Columbia, Emory and Dartmouth, before deciding on Dartmouth—where he’ll study neuroscience and behavior.

Antonio Molina was selected as the Outstanding Alumnus of the Year in the Recent Alumni category. A 2011 graduate, he was cited by the GPC Alumni Association for his community service, which includes coaching GPC students who compete in the Southeastern Regional Model Arab League and participating in Career Day. He is the chairman of the Citizenship Initiative for the Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials and is the legislative aide for State Rep. Pedro Marin.

Ann Marie Hormeku has been named Outstanding Alumna of the Year, Emerging Leader, by the DeKalb College/Georgia Perimeter College Alumni Association. As a nontraditional Dunwoody Campus student, she quickly became involved in several clubs, including the Students With Children club, which she founded. She also has become an advocate for the reduction of unplanned pregnancy among college students.

Sara J. Lane, a dual-enrollment student at Georgia Perimeter’s Newton Campus, is the winner of the GPC-Academy of American Poets Student Poetry Prize for her poem “Worn.” She will receive an award check for $100 and a one-year membership to the Academy of American Poets. She also will become a contestant for the national Aliki Perroti and Seth Frank Most Promising Young Poet Award. The committee of editors from The Chattahoochee Review, which administered the prize and judged the GPC award, also singled out Nikki K. Miller’s poem, “Gold Dust,” for honorable mention from among the many submissions received. Miller is a Clarkston Campus student and this spring won both the 2014 Rosemary Cox Prize for Poetry and the 2014 Helen Friese/Village Writers Group Award for Poetry.

Students in the Science, Technology and Mathematics Talent Expansion Program recently presented their findings of their Summer Bridge I research during a special program at Clarkston Campus. Researcher presenters were Angela Aralu, Gift Ochiobi and Eyerusalem Tefara, for “Analysis of Environmental Water Source for Microbial Presence”; Sterling Jones, DeShayla Sherman, Maurice Jones, Joseph Miles and Folashade Maxwell Shittu for “Chemical Analysis of Water Samples”; Tshibambe Tshimbombu and Darlene Ochiobi for “Extraction and Analysis of Natural Products from Fruits Using GC”; Hoia Nyguen, Vernon Reed, Lovina Delph, Aemah Badri and Oulwatosin Olawale for “Studies in Electrostatics”; Priscilla Ebaimolen Adodo and Kikachukwu Okol for “Synthesis and Investigation of Halogenated Chalcones”;  Nia Momo and Iris Kamgue for “Effects of Air Pollution on Lichen Communities”; Abdul Aziz Cisse, Anh Ho and Koa Ho for “Maximizing the Thermoelectric Voltage of a Thermoelectric Module”;  and Olatide Omojaro for “Dating Mining and Processing Utilizing the Xtreme Programming Process.”