Annually, The Lincoln Academy of Illinois recognizes one senior from each of Illinois’ four-year degree-granting colleges and universities and one senior from the community colleges with the Abraham Lincoln Civic Engagement Award. The Student Laureates are selected based on their leadership, service and excellence in academics and extracurricular activities.

Originally from Springfield, Sgambelluri is a senior majoring in biology, with a concentration in ecology, and chemistry, as well as a minor in art. She is in the IC Scholars Honors Program, a member of Environmentalists of Illinois College and vice president of Sigma Phi Epsilon literary society. She has participated in student-faculty research, BreakAways and marine biology courses that included travel to the Florida Keys. She plans to pursue advanced degrees in marine biology.

When she learned she had been nominated, she began researching Lincoln and his response to the challenges of his day.

“His message was to bring people together, to compromise, to put aside our differences and to love each other. That’s where I want to take myself and where I want to take my research: finding those compromises with other people and communicating and understanding that, if someone doesn’t care about climate change, there’s probably a reason for that. It probably means that their livelihood depends on them not caring about it,” she said.