Dr. Larissa Thomas
Class of 2006
Young Alumni Award
Awarded 2016

When she filled out her Beloit application in 2001, Larissa Thomas noted her wide-ranging interests in her personal statement. After listing a number of them, she wrote, “How can I choose just one path? Must I choose?”

Like many of Beloit’s brightest students, she soon realized that she didn’t have to, combining her passions for performance and science and helping others.

She arrived on campus on her birthday, and quickly applied her prodigious energy and enthusiasm to all that she did, eventually double-majoring in biochemistry and dance. She relished her role as a Resident Assistant for three years, and genuinely cared for the students she worked with. Joyful, athletic, always moving, Larissa was a gifted dancer who made the cut to perform as a finalist in the American College Dance Festival gala concert. Though her accomplishments in academics and in dance were substantial, her Beloit friends remember her most as someone who listened and cared about others.

After Beloit, she danced professionally before enrolling in medical school at Tulane University. She completed her residency in 2015 and started her career in rural Oregon as a family care physician for the Harney District Hospital Family Care Practice.

The characteristics Larissa exhibited at Beloit-her intelligence, her focus, her broad interests, her heart-have proven consistent and only blossomed in the 10 years since she crossed the Commencement stage. She is a model of how to live a life of purposeful consequence. The Alumni Association is pleased to recognize her with the 2016 Young Alumni Award.