San Rafael >> Stephanie Rasmussen, recent Dominican University graduate, has always been an outstanding student. She was the valedictorian of the class of 2011 at Clear Lake High School in Lakeport and, while in college studying chemistry, she managed to maintain a 4.0 GPA and complete her degree in three and a half years. She’s the president of the college’s chemical honors society and she graduated summa cum laude. So it only seems fitting that she was nominated for Outstanding Student at Dominican University of California. The final selection for the award will be announced at the college’s commencement ceremony tomorrow.
Rasmussen’s father, Lakeport Chief of Police Brad Rasmussen, couldn’t be happier. “We thought it was awesome and we were proud of her,” he said about hearing of his daughter’s nomination. “She’s been doing a lot of good work over the last four years at Dominican.”
While many people who know Rasmussen likely expected her nomination, Rasmussen was caught off guard. “I was really surprised. It’s an honor to be nominated,” she said.
Eight seniors, including Rasmussen, were nominated for the award, each outstanding in their own right. Rasmussen is thrilled to be among them. “I feel really honored that whoever nominated me thought I was worthy of this award.”
Several people felt Rasmussen deserved to be awarded. “I went to some of the other professors and said, ‘She needs to be nominated,’ and no one disagreed,” said biology Professor Roland Cooper, who has been working on research with Rasmussen since her sophomore year. He added that she had other outside nominations as well.
Outstanding Student is given each year to one graduating undergraduate who represents the four values of Dominican University: study, reflection, community and service. Rasmussen posses each of these values, said Cooper.
Her impressive grade point average speaks to her focus and determination. “She’s an extremely bright student,” Cooper said. “Obviously she is an incredibly bright student. She’s probably majored in the most difficult major we have on campus.”
Her commitment to education extends far beyond the classroom. Since her Sophomore year, she’s been working with Cooper on antimalarial research, testing drug resistance in the disease. “Probably most of her extra activities have been research based,” Cooper said. “She’s been doing malaria research with me for the last three years.”
When a student at Dominican University majors in Biology or Chemistry, they are required to take a three semester methodology course. This is how Rasmussen became involved in malarial research. “There’s a lot of different aspects of malaria research but what my lab focuses on is drug resistance,” she explained. “Malaria does have a cure. My lab works to research how the parasite becomes resistant to a drug. What I do is I culture malaria parasites … and then I try to make them resistant and then I study them from there.”
And just because she’s finished her degree doesn’t mean her research ends. This summer, she heads to Uganda to work in a small rural hospital where she’ll help in a malarial clinical trial for children, which Cooper said ties into the community and service vales of the university. “She’s going to be working with children in Africa, studying malaria with these patients and these kids,” he said.
While a two month trip to Africa may be nerve-wracking for some, Rasmussen is thrilled for the research opportunity. “I’m really excited to go, I’ve already started packing,” she laughed. “All of the students I’ve talked to in the past have had a really great time so I hope I have similar experiences that are just as good.”
Studying malaria in Africa will give Rasmussen invaluable experience she couldn’t gain in a research lab. “My mentor goes to Uganda every summer to do field work. I really wanted to go as well because I wanted to see malaria first hand,” she explained. “It would give me perspective and help me look at disease in a new light and I wanted to do field work in general because it’s different than working in a laboratory.”
This field research will no-doubt benefit Rasmussen in the future, as she continues on at Dominican University for her Masters in Biological Science, after which she plans to pursue her Ph.D in infectious diseases.
But entering college this was not the plan. Rasmussen first declared Biology as her major, with a plan to attend medical school and obtain her MD. “I realized if I majored in chemistry I could get a stricter analytical background in the sciences,” she explained. “I realized I am passionate about research, so doing the background work into medicine.”
From junior high school on, Rasmussen was focused on med school. “That’s definitely what she wanted to do when she was in high school … Going back to 8th grade she was pretty committed to doing something in the medical field,” Brad Rasmussen said. “[She] studied the sciences at high school and was excited to go on and do it at college. We’re proud of her for continuing on that and doing it well. She couldn’t do any better than she did.”
Cooper said Rasmussen’s decision to head down a different academic path demonstrates reflection, another value of Dominican University. And he’s thrilled she’ll be continuing her education at Dominican University. “We’re really lucky that she decided to stay,” he said. “I’m really lucky because she’s my student now.”
Rasmussen also works as a chemistry and calculus tutor, and apparently has quite the knack for it. “She’s an amazing tutor, just unbelievably talented in tutoring,” Cooper said, adding that she also teaches fellow students about time management, demonstrating her commitment to community and service.
With such a focus on her studies, it’s hard to imagine Rasmussen has much free time, but she insists she makes the room in her schedule. “I do spend a lot of my time devoted to my academics but I do make time to hang out with my friends and my roommates. I like to try and balance it between fun and work-slash-school,” she said. “And a lot of my friends are participating in the same activities as me.”
Cooper wasn’t surprised that Rasmussen has a bit of free time. “She’s just so focused that when she studies, she studies,” he said. “You never see her walking around with her face buried in the cell phone … She doesn’t really distract herself with all that. Whatever needs to be done, she gets it done effectively and efficiently.”
It’s clear that there’s a lot more to Rasmussen than an impressive GPA. “I’ve only been here for five years but I’ve been doing this professor-ing for about 10 years now and she’s in the top five [undergraduate] students I’ve ever worked with,” Cooper said. “She’s amazing. [She’s] high energy, highly motivated and she’s incredibly helpful and compassionate with other people.”
Rasmussen is always looking to help out in the department, to the extent that Cooper said he has to look out for her and keep her from over-extending herself. “She’s really engaged in departmental activities,” he said. “She’s not someone who keeps herself on the periphery.”
Whether or not she’s awarded Outstanding Student tomorrow, Rasmussen definitely deserves her nomination. “She’s kind of academically intimidating,” Cooper said. “She’s so bright, it’s a little scary.”
Jennifer Gruenke can be reached at 900-2019.
