LOWELL -- It was two weeks before final exams when UMass Lowell student Tanya Cameron's home burned down in April 2012, in a six-alarm blaze that tore through Chestnut and Willow streets. "The day after the fire, I contacted my professor because I didn't know what to do," she said Thursday. "I didn't even know where I was going to live, let alone my finals."

Days before graduating with a bachelor's in psychology, a goal that at times seemed out of reach, Cameron recalled how the university rallied behind her. Among those who stepped up to offer support were teammates on a research project, who lost all the data she had taken home that weekend to type up.

"It was something that affected other people, not just myself," she said. "And they were just so awesome. They set up new times that we did the surveys. That research class, they were the first people who came up to me with an envelope of money."

The university also provided rent-free housing for a period of time until she found a place in the city's Highlands section.

Cameron, 42, will receive the Psychology Department's Nancy Green Award, given to graduates who overcome great obstacles. She's one of 2,292 undergraduates set to receive a degree Saturday morning at UMass Lowell's commencement.

"I didn't think it was going to happen for a while,"

Cameron said, with a laugh. "You keep doing all the work, all the work, and you don't really see the light at the end of the tunnel."

"There's been times where I've been like, 'I just can't do this anymore,' or 'I'm never going to make it,' so it definitely feels good to come to that and realize I really did this," she said.

A Brooklyn native, Cameron moved to Lowell seven years ago, part of a resettlement program for domestic-violence survivors. The city has become her home, she

UMass Lowell psychology major Tanya Cameron will graduate Saturday with the Psychology Department's Nancy Green Award, given to graduates who overcome great obstacles. Fire destroyed the home she shared with her two daughters last year. sun/katie Lannan

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said. It's the first place she's felt that she's put down roots.

She's a single mother to 9- and 11-year-old daughters who help her proofread her essays, taking particular joy in catching an error in their mom's work.

"I am totally doing homework along with my daughters when I can," Cameron said. "They'll ask me 10 million questions, or they like to stand over me as I type up my papers. Sometimes it gets a little hard to get work done, so I come to the library, get to school earlier or stay a little bit later. I try to be in mom mode versus student mode."

After about a year and a half in Lowell, Cameron enrolled at Middlesex Community College. She graduated in 2010 with an associate's degree in liberal arts.

Faculty advisers encouraged her to then transfer to UMass Lowell, where she would go on to earn a spot on the dean's list, while also taking classes toward a master's degree in community social psychology.

"For whatever reason, they saw something in me," Cameron said.

She decided continue her education after realizing her lack of a degree was holding her back from a career working with at-risk youth, a field she had first explored years before, working at a community center in Dover, N.H.

"I just remembered how much fun I had with those at-risk kids, and making a change and a difference in their lives, so that's what I wanted to do," she said. "But this time, I wanted to have a degree."

Cameron didn't wait to have the diploma

Tanya Cameron shares her story of perserverance after fire destroyed her home last year. Watch the video at lowellsun.com.
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in hand before giving back to her adopted community. She volunteers with children's programs at the Salvation Army, and for the Center for Hope and Healing, helping man the agency's rape-crisis hotline.

At UMass Lowell, she co-founded an organization called the Navigators Club, which reaches out to students who have been foster children, experienced homelessness or faced other struggles.

"There's so much paperwork that comes with college," Cameron said. "For someone who's homeless or a dependent or has aged out of foster care, you don't have a parent at home who would normally help you with those things, so that's kind of what we're there for."

Cameron would often bring her daughters along to club meetings, and the girls helped the group serve Thanksgiving dinner to the homeless at Eliot Presbyterian Church.

On Saturday, Savannah and Olivia will attend their mom's commencement ceremony, watching her receive her degree and carry the Psychology Department's flag through the Tsongas Center.

Cameron said she hopes she doesn't trip, and that her girls stay awake throughout the day's events, including a speech from Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis.

Beyond that, she hopes to be someone her daughters can look up to.

"We talk a lot about social issues in our house," she said. "It's really big at our dinner table."

She said she wants her daughters to continue to give back, to remember there are always others who are less fortunate and to appreciate what they have "because tomorrow it could be gone" -- something the family learned when their apartment went up in flames last April.

"I try to remind them how far we've come," Cameron said. "We went through that tragedy, but we were able to rise above it, and that tragedy doesn't define who we are or how we have to live."

Follow Katie Lannan on twitter @katielannan.