In the months leading up to her 18th birthday, Dorothy Jean Tillman II wasn’t worried about applying to college or picking out a prom dress. Instead, the Chicago teen was busy defending her doctoral dissertation at Arizona State University. After successfully doing so in December of 2023, Tillman became the youngest person in the school’s history to receive a doctorate degree in integrated behavioral health. On May 6, Tillman attended Arizona State’s commencement ceremony in person to celebrate her historic accomplishment, to be honored as Outstanding Graduate Student for the Class of 2024, and to give an address to her fellow graduates.
“It feels very surreal,” Tillman told Jennifer Hudson in an interview ahead of her graduation. “I’m just proud of myself knowing I’ve accomplished something so big.”
“At the end of the day, if you tell yourself, you can do it.”
Tillman, who was homeschooled by her mother, was enrolled in college courses by age 10. She completed her associate’s degree in psychology from the College of Lake County in Illinois in 2016. In 2018, Tillman completed her bachelor’s degree and moved directly into a master’s program at Unity College in Maine. By 2021, she had been accepted into Arizona State’s Behavioral Health Management Program.
Tillman largely attributes her success to her support system. Tillman’s grandmother and namesake Dorothy Tillman is a Civil Rights activist, politician, and former city alderman of Chicago. “She of course harped on the importance of education and consistently learning something, always,” Tillman told GMA of her grandmother’s role in her academic success.
While Dr. Tillman has spent much of her young life focused on her accelerated course of education, she has also found time to start her own STEAM camp, the Dorothyjeanius STEAM Leadership Institute, to increase access to science, technology, engineering, arts, and math programming in underrepresented groups.
“Keeping your faith and mind over matter is what is going to carry you through anything you’re passionate about,” Tillman told Hudson of what she hopes to pass on to her camp participants. “At the end of the day, if you tell yourself, you can do it.”
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