Salima Mostafa has gotten a glimpse of her future, and she likes what she sees. The Rutgers–Camden graduate, who has aspirations to become a physician and serve as a presidential health care policy adviser, has been working at the White House this year, one of 150 students chosen nationwide to participate in the highly competitive White House Internship Program. Working in the Office of Presidential Personnel, which oversees the process of selecting presidential appointments for positions in the federal government, Mostafa CCAS’13 has had an eye-opening experience witnessing, and working with, talented public officials whose commitment to public service is something she intends to emulate.

“Public service is my passion,” says Mostafa, whose family arrived in the United States from Bangladesh 10 years ago. “From the program, I want to acquire the intellectual tools to become more than just a physician, but also a charitable leader of the less fortunate in my community.” While at Rutgers–Camden, she helped establish Project REACH, a student initiative to teach preventative health care to students in Camden’s middle schools, an effort for which Mostafa was awarded the Rutgers–Camden 2012 Chancellor’s Award for Civic Engagement.