Sammani Perera, instructor of English, won her second Sony Electronics’ Alpha Female Plus grant for her photograph, “They Sing You to Sleep.” The grant program is a weekly themed photography and videography contest hosted by The Alpha Female+ Community, a subsidiary of Sony Electronics.
“They Sing You to Sleep” captures the Milky Way over her tent on the top of Hunts Mesa of Monument Valley. Describing the photo, she wrote, “23 days on the road—more than 5000 miles across 14 states—and this is my favorite night of all. Not only because it didn’t feel real to finally see Monument Valley from the top of
Hunts Mesa, but also because the magic of this place kept me from failing at another Milky Way shoot. In the Southwest, nights are enchanted.”
The photo won the grant under the theme of “Summer Vibes,” judged for relevance to theme, creativity/storytelling within the photo/video, technical mastery of the photo/video, and photo/video caption/written story. She won the same grant in 2025 for her photo “Swish of a Magic Wand” under the theme of “Golden Hour” and this photo made her the winner of the landscape category at the 2026 Sony Alpha Female+ Creator of the Year program.
While Perera teaches in the Department of English during the semester, she is a Fine Arts travel and landscape photographer during school breaks. Her photography focuses on public lands of the USA, a journey that the Olympic National Park in Washington started for her in 2017. Her photos have been featured by the Grand Canyon National Park, Grand Canyon Conservancy, Arizona
Highways, Visit West Virginia and PhotoPills.
