Dawn Rosemier ('12), San Diego, CA

Dawn Rosemier ('12) hopes to become a fingerprint analyst or crime scene investigator.

With her new duffel bag loaded with SDSU alumni gear perfect for summer at the beach, Dawn Rosemier is all set for catching some rays by the waves. But June’s Aztec for Life Prize Giveaway winner has been rather busy since her graduation in May.

“I've just really been trying to focus on finding a job,” she says.

A former dental assistant and office manager, the 45-year-old Rosemier hopes her criminal justice degree will lead to a career as a latent fingerprint analyst or crime scene investigator. She is looking for a law enforcement agency that will hire her.

"Whether it’s local, state or federal, I'm just trying to find a place that has openings that I qualify for and apply to them,” she says. “I had about a year’s internship at the San Diego Sheriff's Crime Lab training to develop fingerprints on all sorts of different types of evidence items. I loved it all!”


Rosemier says she is fascinated with forensic technology and crime investigation.

"It combines all my loves into one thing,” she explains. “I like science, I like puzzles and it’s always changing, so I don't get bored.”

Dawn Rosemier uses her martial arts training to break a stack of bricks.

A martial arts instructor for more than 20 years, Rosemier is a third-degree black belt. She says it’s great exercise and also stress relieving, but there is another aspect she appreciates as well.

“You do the punching and all that stuff,” she says, “but there is an art side to it and I really enjoy that side of it.”

As a student, Rosemier was active on campus and belonged to several honor societies and service organizations such as Golden Key, PSFA Civil Core and Mortar Board.

The people in Mortar Board are amazing,” she says. “They’re very intelligent yet still really down-to-earth and involved in the community both on campus and off. It was a very big honor to be chosen and I have to say I will miss those people the most."

Becoming a lifetime member of the Alumni Association while still a student, Rosemier says she had hoped to gain additional exposure to Aztec alumni already working in her field and she wanted to make sure she always maintained a connection to SDSU.

"One of the things I really liked about San Diego State,” she observes, “is the fact that there's a huge diversity on campus, but that diversity really does get along and they really do intermingle and that's pretty amazing, especially with some of the things that are going on in society nowadays."