DEARBORN— Henry Ford College
(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.