Name: Salmah Rizvi

Recipient Year: 2014

Major: Law

Description: Raised as a Shia Muslim, Salmah was motivated to fight inequality from an early age. As a sophomore at the Johns Hopkins University, she founded the relief organization Vision XChange. While obtaining an M.S. in Foreign Service from Georgetown University, she volunteered at the Emancipation Network in Kolkata to help survivors of human trafficking. Salmah also worked full-time for the U.S. Departments of State and Defense as a lead linguist and analyst. Her high-value work would often inform the President’s Daily Briefs. Salmah was appointed the first Chairwoman of the Department’s Islamic Cultural Employee Resource Group. She received a JD from the New York University School of Law and hopes ultimately to combine her legal, security, and nonprofit experience into a role as an effective civic leader. She has since held clerkships within the federal courts as well as the role of Executive Director of the ACLU of Hawaii.

School Name: NYU

Sponsor: Council on American-Islamic Relations|CAIR-SFBA Scholarship