Fernando Escalona and his mother

Fernando Escalona won the 2005 Jack Kent Cooke Foundation Undergraduate Transfer Scholarship and entered Emory University the same year.

“Fernando was one of the most articulate and productive History and Politics Club presidents in our 15 years as a club,” says Bob King, GPC history professor and faculty advisor to the Clarkston HaP Club. Escalona was one of just 25 young men and women selected nationwide for the scholarship in 2005.

When he first came to GPC from Spain, Escalona was “embarrassed” by his limited ability to speak English, he said later. That changed at GPC, as he honed his language skills and gained confidence in his studies. He earned a 3.88 GPA, winning honors in math and history before he graduated with an associate degree in history.

“The reward was in the effort itself,” he said. “Such is the magic of learning.”

Escalona was a member of the All-USA Academic Team and was inducted into the Phi Theta Kappa honor society.

Victoria White (center) – 2009

Victoria “Tory” White received the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation Undergraduate Transfer Scholarship in 2009 and says she is deeply grateful for the scholarship and the opportunity to graduate from Emory University in 2014. Now Victoria White Spears, she is married and stays home with her young children.

“The Jack Kent Cooke Scholarship allowed me to transfer to and graduate from Emory, which was an amazing and invaluable experience. I always love being in a position to give GPC the credit it deserves for allowing me to achieve so much,” she says.

While at GPC, White started out in learning support math, but quickly mastered the material. By 2009, when she transferred from GPC, she was recognized as the collegewide Regents Outstanding Scholar and as the recipient of the Outstanding Student Award for Science. White also was selected as a member of Phi Theta Kappa’s Coca-Cola All-State Academic Team, for which she received a scholarship.

In his recommendation of White to Emory, Dr. Jeff Portnoy, GPC’s Honors Program coordinator, included letters from two faculty members: English professor Dr. Rosemary Cox and history professor Dr. Tom Graham.

“Ms. White’s scholastic aptitude puts her in the top 1 percent of her class,” Cox wrote. “From essay tests to oral presentations, her performance in class reflects not only mastery of the material but insight into the universal principles underlying the works under discussion.”

“Her high level of intelligence is obvious; however, that is not what makes her the dream student she is,” wrote Graham. “It is her level of intensity to complete any task to the nth degree of perfection. Besides a fine mind and work ethic, Ms. White has a warm personality and gentle spirit that informs not only her desire to tutor her fellow students but to help creatures in need. She has dedicated hours and hours each semester to tutoring her fellow GPC students in a variety of subjects, including mathematics, astronomy, writing and literature, history and film. In her spare time, she is a one-woman operation for rescuing and adopting animals that are injured, lost or abandoned. Her community recognizes her as ‘the animal girl.’ ”

Trung Quach – 2014

Trung Quach says when he came to Georgia Perimeter College in 2011 from Vietnam, he was so shy, he could barely say a word in class. That changed dramatically.

By the time he graduated with an associate degree in 2014, Quach had gained leadership skills from years as a tutor at GPC and the support and encouragement of his professors and fellow students.

“I learned a lot from my GPC professors, as they’re all awesome,” says Quach, now a biochemistry major at Georgia Tech. He credits his GPC biology professor, Dr. Jonathan Lochamy, with “showing me how awesome and fun research could be,” and his chemistry professor, Dr. Michael Nelson, with giving him “lots of advice” toward his career goals.

During the summer, Quach participated in Georgia Tech research involving heme, “a prosthetic group of proteins that perform diverse functions, such as oxygen transport, oxidative metabolism and a lot of important functions.” He plans to graduate in Spring 2016.

“Without the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation Undergraduate Transfer Scholarship, it would nearly be impossible for me to go to Tech, as the tuition is about five times more than GPC,” Quach says. “But not only did the scholarship lower the [financial] burden on my shoulders, it also gives me confidence and support. Jack Kent Cooke believed in [students like] me. The staff at the foundation and my fellow Cooke Scholars believe in me. And the scholar network (past and present Jack Kent Cooke Scholars) is phenomenal.”

“All I can say is that it is not only a scholarship; it is a life-changing opportunity. I can say that now I can dream big, because now I know that if you dream big and work hard towards your goal, you can reach it, and then, reach even higher.”

Jack Kent Cooke Scholar Rozhin Parvaresh works with her biology professor, Dr. Seyed Hosseini. (Photo by Bill Roa)

As one of two 2015 Jack Kent Cooke Scholars, Rozhin Parvaresh is still astounded that she won an award that will allow her to go to Georgia Tech, where she plans to pursue a degree in petro-chemical engineering.

An Iranian native, her career would have been blocked in her country, she says. “In Iran, girls are not allowed to major in fields like engineering.”

But her parents knew her potential. “My dad studied in the U.S. and got his degree here. He said, ‘if you get a degree in the U.S., you have more opportunities in the world.’”

When she first came to Georgia Perimeter College, Parvaresh excelled in math, but spoke little English. Determined to learn, she studied books and watched TV to learn the language. Her tenacity impressed Dr. Jay Dunn, a GPC Dunwoody astronomy professor.

“The first time I met Rozhin, she was working cutting sandwiches at the Campus Café,” he says. “I saw she had a system of cutting the sandwiches—I told her she was cutting sandwiches with the precision of an engineer—and asked her if she considered studying engineering.”

That conversation with Dunn encouraged her, Parvaresh says. “The next semester, she enrolled in Dunn’s physics courses and never looked back.

“I am going to miss this place,” Parvaresh says. “I’ve been here for three years, and it’s been an honor—my professors and the students I’ve met have had a real impact on my life.”

The award provides up to $40,000 a year toward tuition and fees for undergraduate education. After earning a bachelor’s degree, each Cooke Scholar is eligible for a graduate school scholarship worth up to $50,000 a year for up to four years.

The scholarship funded Hormeku’s dream of transferring to the University of Georgia where she is majoring in English, while also managing her responsibilities as a wife and mother to three young children.

“I had been accepted to UGA, but I knew I was going to come up short financially, even with student loans,” she said.

While at Perimeter, Hormeku started a support group for students with children and won a number of academic awards.

A one-time teen mom who started college in her late 20s, Hormeku said two jobs—and two lay-off notices—helped her make the decision to enroll at Perimeter.

“I knew college was an investment in my future,” she said.

When cultural norms in her country steered girls away from science, she moved to a country that provided more freedom.

When her younger sisters needed care, she committed to becoming their role model.

Cisse, who now studies biology at Georgia State University’s Perimeter College, has been named a semifinalist for the Jack Kent Cooke (JKC) Undergraduate Transfer Scholarship, one of the United States’ most competitive awards for two-year college students.

The scholarship gives each winner up to $40,000 per year for up to three years to complete their bachelor’s degree. It is the largest private scholarship in the country for two-year and community college transfer students, with winners selected based on factors such as leadership, service to others and academic ability.

Cisse hopes her parents, who always encouraged her curiosity and academic pursuits, would be proud.

“I was a sickly child, and I would spend weeks at the hospital, and I always wanted to know what was happening with me,” she recalled of growing up in Senegal’s capital, Dakar.

But in Senegal, girls were not channeled into the study of science.

She fondly recalls her mother’s reassurance after teachers placed her in non-science classes in high school.

“She told me not to cry,” Cisse remembers. “She said, ‘You have to believe in yourself. If you put your mind into it, you can do whatever.’”

Cisse clings to these words, especially since her mom died unexpectedly in 2012, a year after Cisse graduated from high school.

Cisse had decided to move to the United States, where she would have the freedom to pursue her dream of becoming a physician. But the move did not come quickly or smoothly.

Because of her mother’s death, Cisse postponed her plans to come to the United States, opting instead to stay in Senegal to work and care for two younger sisters until they graduated from high school.

Around the time Cisse’s mom died, her dad moved to Atlanta to get medical treatment for diabetes complications that required a bilateral leg amputation. In 2018, once she got her siblings settled, Cisse headed to Atlanta to enroll in college and be by her father’s side.

“It was challenging,” Cisse said of helping to care for her dad and attend college simultaneously.  “But I was honored to be there for him so we could all navigate it together.”

Her father died in February due to his illness. Cisse learned she’d been named a JKC semifinalist only days after her family buried him in Senegal.

Biology professor Dr. Kimmy Kellett is impressed by Cisse’s resiliency. She has known her for a couple of years, mostly because of Cisse’s participation as a student leader in the Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (LSAMP) program, an initiative aimed at increasing the number of minority students graduating with degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Kellett is LSAMP’s program adviser.

“As a student, Awa is resilient, endlessly curious and devoted to self-improvement,” Kellett said. “As a student leader, she is patient, supportive and inspirational. Rather than focusing on limitations, she figures out how to achieve goals using the resources available. I know that Awa will (and already has) made the world a better place, and I predict that this is the first of many articles written about her.”

Cisse’s college involvement also includes her roles as president of the Feminati Club, a student leader for LSAMP, a member of Phi Theta Kappa, a volunteer chemistry tutor and part of the Dunwoody Outdoor Club. In Senegal, Cisse volunteers with Tanel Health, an organization that helps provides health care for individuals in rural areas.

“Everything that’s happening, I do to be a role model for my sisters,” she said.

Winning the Jack Kent Cooke award would enable her to focus less on finances and more on her health and studies.

Emory, Yale, Vanderbilt and several Georgia universities, including Georgia State, are among the schools to which Cisse is applying to continue her education in biology, biochemistry and women’s studies. Becoming an emergency room doctor is among Cisse’s considerations.

The announcement of this year’s Jack Kent Cooke scholarship winners is expected in April. Since 2002, the foundation has awarded 21 Perimeter students the scholarship.

Matthew Wessler smiles a lot these days. He’s especially grateful for how his life has changed from an existence centered on drugs into one rooted in achievement and giving back.

In December, Wessler graduated with an associate degree from Georgia State University’s Perimeter College. At Perimeter, he excelled in the Honors College, earned multiple academic awards, maintained a 4.0-grade point average and tutored fellow math students.

Nationally, Wessler is among this year’s semifinalists for the Jack Kent Cooke Undergraduate Transfer Scholarship, one of the country’s most prestigious and generous awards for community college transfer students. The selective scholarship is reserved for top two-year college students seeking to complete their bachelor’s degrees at four-year institutions. It provides recipients up to $40,000 per year for up to three years. The announcement of this year’s scholarship winners is expected in April.

“I consider where I would have been if I had stayed on a path of poor choices, and I am proud of myself for choosing a more enriching life,” the 21-year-old Woodstock resident said.

Once a middle school honors student, Wessler stopped applying himself and started to veer off track during his first year in high school. He said he hung with the wrong crowd, skipped class, regularly smoked marijuana and eventually tried harder drugs, such as LSD.

“It completely derailed me,” he recalled. “I was a complete mess.”

Wessler credits his recovery partly to inpatient therapy, where he learned about behavior and consequences, as well as to his mom’s unconditional support.

“Although she did not always like my behavior, she has always wanted the best for me. She knew that I could become who I am today, even though no one else believed it,” Wessler said about his mother.

“I had all this potential, and I finally realized that I had been wasting it,” Wessler said.

After getting treatment, Wessler went back to school and began pouring himself into positive high school activities and his academics. He got involved with an organization called Friends Club that helps special needs students develop social and job skills. In his senior year, he became president of the Friends Club and passed his three Advanced-Placement (AP) exams with the highest scores.

While at Perimeter, Wessler took a class from Dr. Gregg Murray, associate professor of English. Murray wrote a recommendation letter as part of Matthew’s JKC scholarship application.

“I loved teaching Matthew, and probably the best part was reading his essays,” Murray said. “They were brilliant, probing, highly analytical writings.”

Based on his academic performance at Perimeter, Wessler earned several achievements, including being named this March as the Phi Theta Kappa New Century Transfer Pathways Scholarship winner for the state of Georgia. The award reflects his standing as the top-scoring student in Georgia for the 2020 All-USA Academic Team competition.

After graduating from Perimeter, Wessler transitioned to Georgia State’s Atlanta Campus in  January to continue studying actuarial science, a field his mother thought he would enjoy because of his strong math skills. In addition to his classes, he volunteers in the community, currently spending each Friday stocking the shelves at Never Alone, a Woodstock food pantry.

Since 2002, the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation has awarded 19 Perimeter students the undergraduate transfer scholarship.

Wessler hopes to become one of this year’s winners. But, for all his academic accolades, he feels most elated about the progress he has made in other areas of his life.

“The thing I am most grateful and thrilled about, though, is that I am happy,” he said. “I love myself, and I feel loved by others; I did not use to feel that way about myself, and if I had continued making bad choices, I never would have left that place.”

Ten students from Georgia State University’s Perimeter College have been named semifinalists for the 2023 Jack Kent Cooke Undergraduate Transfer Scholarship. The Jack Kent Cooke award is a competitive scholarship for the nation’s top two-year college students. It provides recipients with up to $55,000 per year, placing the scholarship among the largest private awards in the country for community college transfer students. The following is a profile of one of Perimeter’s ten semifinalists. They are among 459 semifinalists selected from more than 1,700 applicants attending 215 community colleges in 38 states.

CLARKSTON, Ga.–Perimeter College student Julian Umana-Bernal is a U.S. Army veteran who learned English during his stint as a medic in South Korea during COVID-19. His time in the military strengthened his resolve to help others, he said.

As a semifinalist for the national Jack Kent Cooke Foundation Undergraduate Transfer Scholarship, he hopes to make that dream a reality.

The child of Colombian parents, Umana-Bernal was born in Georgia, but his parents were deported back to Colombia when he was young. While in Colombia, he found he excelled in chemistry courses, taking as many advanced courses as he could in high school.

But furthering his education in college seemed a daunting financial challenge, he said.

He joined the U.S. Army after high school, saving money for college. “I was in South Korea and worked as a medic during COVID-19,” he said.

The experience reinforced his desire to help others.

“My time in the U.S. Army gave me a good sense of community and the satisfaction of putting others first and the feeling of being part of something bigger than myself,” he said. “And I learned English during that time.”

After serving in the military, he came to Perimeter College in 2021. “I had been living in Georgia before and knew that community college was the place I need to be,” Umana-Bernal said. He attended classes on the Clarkston Campus, continuing to excel in chemistry, physics and engineering. He also studied very hard. “I spent a lot of time in the library,” he said.

An Honors student, he credits chemistry professor Amy Cook, mathematics professor John Weber and Mathematics Engineering and Science Achievement program director, Janna Blum, for being his mentors while at Perimeter. But he also cites the 2022 Jack Kent Cooke winner, Papa Ebo Quainoo, as his primary motivator to apply for the scholarship. “He told me what to do to apply and to keep up my 4.0,” he said.

Umana-Bernal noted that his time as a medic in the army inspired him to continue his studies in chemistry while at Perimeter. But he had to return to Colombia because he couldn’t afford to stay in the U.S. He now takes classes online.

“I saw a lot of stuff going on during COVID working in the clinic as an EMT. It was one of the worst years in my life, seeing all that was going on. But I was inspired by the situation. Since I was I kid, I knew I wanted to help people and after my experience as a medic, I knew what I wanted to do. I want to create better products for helping people by focusing on creating medicines to solve health problems,” he said.

Umana-Bernal works part-time as an English tutor in Colombia and also volunteers as a tutor for students in advanced chemistry for his former high school professor.

It was while he was at work as a tutor that he found out he was a scholarship semifinalist, he said. “I got the email, and I was jumping up and down—I was so excited.”

If he wins the scholarship, he aspires to join the Jack Kent Cooke community of scholars who have endured and overcome similar economic uncertainties in their lives.

“I would love being surrounded by people who have been able to thrive in life, fight for their goals and still be as intellectually bright as any other individual with economic stability excites me. Sharing experiences with people who see education as the most powerful weapon to change our communities excites me,” he said.

Umana-Bernal, who is married, would like to go to Emory University and pursue a degree in chemistry.

DUNWOODY, Ga.—Kseniya Harrington studies the presence of UFOs in space.

“But not alien UFOs,” the Perimeter College physics student said, with a smile.

Her research is on Ultra-fast Outflows, phenomena often found in the spectra of many Seyfert galaxies in quasars and supermassive black holes. Recently, she presented her findings on UFO gas in the quasar PDS 456 during the 100th annual Georgia Academy of Science meeting at Georgia College and State in Milledgeville.

Studying black holes in far-off galaxies may seem like a far cry from someone who took their first college science course online barely four years ago. For Harrington, it’s the realization of a dream to make a difference in scientific research.

Harrington’s drive to reach for the outer limits of space represents just one of the reasons she’s been recognized as a semifinalist for the Jack Kent Cooke Undergraduate Transfer scholarship.

Like many nontraditional students at Perimeter College, Harrington’s educational journey started with a few classes in between working full-time.

“I was working in Georgia State’s admissions office processing applications when I decided to take advantage of the tuition assistance program,” Harrington said.

“I hadn’t taken a science class since high school, but I always got good grades and I liked science, so I took my first chemistry class online while I was working. I fell in love with it.”

Harrington, who came to the U.S. from Ukraine in 2016 to be a nanny, took more courses, coming to the Dunwoody Campus to do her labs, before finally deciding to go to college full time in 2021. “I decided to finish my associate degree and see where life takes me.”

While she initially intended to study chemistry, she said she fell in love with physics and began pursuing more research under the guidance of Dunwoody astronomy and physics professor Dr. Jay Dunn. She also got involved as president of the college SPACE Club. The club often travels to local Dunwoody elementary schools to conduct science experiments. “We build rocket models and lava lamps and talk about science to kids in different grades. It’s a lot of fun.” On campus, she also has served as a supplemental instructor in both physics and chemistry classes, helping her fellow students in that role.

Harrington is excited to report that her research has paid off. After more than a year of searching for a particular UFO in the Dunwoody Campus physics labs, she hit the proverbial astronomical jackpot, finding a whole new UFO near a quasar that had not yet been identified. Her findings will be published in the scientific publication, Astrophysical Journal, later this year.

Harrington is cautiously optimistic about her future. She keeps in touch with her parents, who are still in Ukraine, and talks to them regularly, despite the ongoing war with Russia.

“Early on, for a few months, they did not have any cell phone service, and I worried. But I have been able to stay in touch with them,” she said.

Receiving the JKC scholarship would be life-changing and enable her to continue her scientific path, she said. The 28-year-old honors student graduates this May and hopes to either continue her studies in applied physics with a concentration in material sciences at either the Massachusetts Institute of Technology or Georgia State.

“This scholarship would mean a lot to me,” she said. “I would have the opportunity to do what like and contribute to society in a way that matters as well as add to scientific progress.”