The award was just another step in realizing the American dream.
She grew up in Tanzania, Africa, in a small town at the foot of Mount Kilimanjaro.
In 1999, she, her parents and her brother immigrated to Clemson, where she attended Daniel High School.
She graduated from Daniel in 2000 with a Superior Scholars high school diploma. Later that year, she enrolled at Southern Wesleyan University, where she graduated from in 2004 with a bachelor of science degree in biology and a bachelor of arts degree in chemistry.
Shah was the first graduate of what the newly formed Honors Program. She did her honor’s research project through Oconee Memorial Hospital. He project’s goal was to determine whether left ventricular hyper trophy can be diagnosed from the results of an electrocadiogram before an echocardiogram is performed.
She spent a summer doing cancer research at East Virginia Medical School and the Children’s Hospital of the King’s Daughters at the Summer Scholars Program at the Center for Pediatric Research.
She and SWU professor Dr. Walt Sinnamon applied and received a grant from the S.C. Independent Colleges and Universities to research whether eating Cheerios could help reduce overall cholesterol in humans. The results of their research were positive.
“I just completed my 28th year at Southern Wesleyan and I have never had a student with such high motivation who worked harder in all her endeavors, to excel academically, to learn all that she could, to be involved in extra- and co-curricular activities to help with student development, and to be of service to others on campus and in the greater community,” Sinnamon said.
Shah earned certificates in both phlebotomy and electrocardiography during her college years. She was a hospice patient care volunteer and a volunteer instructor for the American Red Cross in first aid, safety, CPR and AED.
She was a volunteer at Helping Hands Children’s Home and a student ambassador for Southern Wesleyan.
The treasurer of SWU class, she as also a representative to the Student Government Association. She took part in a medical mission’s trip through Medical Missions to Panama in 2002.
She was president of the school’s Rotoract Club.
Shah won was given the Minority Leadership Award and was selected to Who’s Who Among College Students. She received the Gladys Glover Parker Award for demonstrating exceptional scholastic achievement, excellence in leadership ability and dedication to serving others.
In 2007, Shah earned her Masters Degree in Microbiology. Her thesis was a study to determine the effects of titanium dioxide nonoparticles on methicillin-resistant Staphyococcus aureus.
While at Clemson, Shah earned the Jerome V. Reel Award of Academic Excellence, The Walter Cox Graduate Student Award for Community Outreach and Excellence in Leadership, the President’s Commission on Outstanding Women award, the Graduate Student Award, the R.C. Edwards Outstanding Graduate Research Award and the Teaching Assistant Award.
She was involved with the Pickens County Chapter of the American Red Cross, the Tigers for Tsunami Relief, the Biological Science Graduate Student Association and the Association for India’s Development.
Shah is currently at the Infectious Diseases Department of the Harvard University School of Public Health in Boston, Mass, where she works as a research assistant in the Tuberculosis Lab.
She is conducting experiments on mycobacterium, the bacterial genus causing tuberculosis.
As part of this research, she traveled to South Africa where she learned more about the realities of tuberculosis and its devastating effects on people.
Sinnamon describes Shah as “a young woman you can count on no matter what the situation; a young woman who is highly motivated to give her very best no matter what she is asked to do or chooses to participate in; a young woman who builds strong and positive relationships.”
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