Iraqi native Aemah Badri is driven with the desire to succeed. The petite 25-year-old Georgia Perimeter College student efficiently organizes her time for her studies, tutors others, is a leader in the Math, Engineering and Science club, and is active in the  Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society and  GPC’s Math, Engineering, and Science Achievement (MESA) organization.

Badri does all this, while maintaining a 4.0 GPA.

In March, she was rewarded for her hard work. The GPC student learned she was one of just 50 Coca-Cola New Century Scholars in the United States and the only student from Georgia to be named a 2015 New Century Scholar and receive $2,000 scholarship. The New Century Scholars program is sponsored by the Coca-Cola Foundation, Coca-Cola Scholars Foundation, Phi Theta Kappa and the American Association of Community Colleges.

The scholarship is an affirmation of Badri’s commitment to her education, which was temporarily sidetracked when she fled Iraq with her husband five years ago.

As a student in the engineering program at the Technical College of Mosul, she was not welcomed in class because she didn’t wear the traditional headscarf. Iraqis who were not Muslim were the targets of threats, persecution and worse, she says.

“My life was threatened because I am a Christian,” she says. “I was always receiving threats in school; people would drop notes on me saying, ‘you will be killed if you come back to class.’”

But Badri was stubborn. “I wanted to finish,” she says. For two years, she skipped classes to avoid the threats, studying and coming in only for exams.

That changed the day a bomb exploded in front of her as she was walking to school. “There was blood … there were dead people right in front of me. That day I decided I wasn’t going to college anymore.”

The Taliban was making Mosul increasingly unsafe for Christians. Newly married, Badri and her husband, who also had been threatened at work, decided to emigrate. They sought asylum in Turkey before being granted refugee status in the United States in 2010. A sister-in-law invited the couple to move to Clarkston.

In 2012, Badri enrolled at Georgia Perimeter, determined to continue her education.

“I did my research and found out there were a lot of opportunities here and that there was a good engineering program,” she says.  It also was close to home.

Despite having two years of college in Mosul, Badri started her education over at GPC, first taking ESL courses, before progressing to her engineering program. “When I came here, I was the most shy person; I would go to classes, finish and go home,” she says. Badri did understand English, but in Iraq, her education was entirely in Arabic, making it difficult to translate her past studies to English, she says.

When she declared her major as engineering, she was advised to visit Dr. Anant Honkan, GPC’s engineering professor and advisor. “He is the one who made me who I am—he advised me a lot and made me succeed to where I am at this point,” she says. 

Honkan encouraged Badri to join the MESA program and get involved in other STEM activities at the college. Also at Honkan’s suggestion, Badri enrolled in GPC’s Regents Engineering Transfer Program, which guarantees admission to Georgia Tech upon completion of a set course of study. She will transfer to Georgia Tech to major in civil engineering in the fall.

“MESA is the place I learned how to be a successful student and not be shy,” she says. She tutors students in math, calculus and physics. “As a tutor I learned how to deal with different kinds of people with different abilities and help them solve problems.”  

Badri also credits her Clarkston English professor and PTK advisor for her success in college.  “Dr. Lauren Curtright is awesome,” she says. The feeling was mutual—Curtright immediately saw Badri’s desire to learn.

“In my English classes, Aemah stood out as especially hardworking and intellectually curious,” says Curtright. “She is also very brave. In her life, she has stood up for her beliefs even when threatened to change them. On top of that, she has a delightful sense of humor and shows great empathy and goodwill to others. She wants everyone around her to do their best.”

For Badri, life now has many opportunities. She is excited about moving on to continue her degree at Georgia Tech.

“I was once the shyest person in the world. This place is great. I love Georgia Perimeter College—it really has made a difference in my life,” Badri says.

Badri will be recognized at Phi Theta Kappa’s Annual Convention, April 16-18, in San Antonio, Texas.