Student Wins All-USA Scholar Award

HFC honors student Meral Ebrahem recently won an All-USA Scholar Award for $1,000.

“I have to admit that I was shocked when I heard I won. Between raising a family, my job and school, all my hard work is finally paying off,” said Ebrahem, who lives in Dearborn Heights with her husband and four children.

A native of Egypt, Ebrahem immigrated to California in 1999 and has been in Michigan since 2008. She has attended HFC since 2011, where she works as a lab assistant in HFC’s Chemistry Dept. She will graduate in the spring with her associate degree in Pre-Pharmacy.

Ebrahem will attend The University of Michigan (U-M) in the fall, where she will major in chemistry. The money from the All-USA Scholar Award will help pay her tuition at U-M. After completion of her undergraduate degree, she plans on attending pharmacy school at U-M as well.

“This marks the next step in completing my journey to becoming a pharmacist,” she said.

Growing up in Egypt, Ebrahem’s interest began in pharmacy at a young age when she’d shadow her late father, a physician, on his medical rounds. She helped him distribute various medications, which she learned about quickly under his tutelage.

“Meral is a rare student who has overcome so much adversity in the last two years and still found a way to excel in life as a student, a mother, and a wife. All of us in the Chemistry Dept. are very proud of her,” said Dr. Todd Whitaker, an HFC Chemistry instructor who has had Ebrahem in three of his classes. He was also her mentor last semester for Honors Directed Study in Chemistry.