Meet Huzaifa Kamran Khawaja, one Napa Valley College's Class of 2020 Valedictorians! Huzaifa is a Student Support Services (SSS) TRIO student who was selected among all eligible honor students with a cumulative 3.5 GPA or higher via a selection process.
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Twenty-two-year-old Huzaifa Kamran Khawaja has been in the United States for less than three years, but has made quite a mark in that short time. In 2017, his father, a retired Pakistani Air Force logistics officer, and his mother, a homemaker, immigrated with the family from Pakistan, when Huzaifa was in the midst of completing his A-levels, roughly equivalent to a college-prep high school in the United States.
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They settled in Napa County and Huzaifa’s cousins recommended he start his college journey at Napa Valley College, where they, too, had studied. “After one semester, I knew it was the right place for me,” said Huzaifa, who plans to become a doctor.
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Huzaifa was elected to the Associated Students of Napa Valley College (ASNVC) in 2018 and represented the student body as the student trustee on the NVC Board of Trustees. He served on two trustee committees, Real Property and Finance, as well as on two hiring committees and the student discipline hearing panel. He also served as an officer in the Dreamers of Community Change student club and vice president for NVC’s Phi Theta Kappa college project.
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“I keep a diary to help me schedule my time,” he said with a smile. “When I am of service to others, I feel good. My culture and my parents raised me that way.”
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Huzaifa studied molecular and cellular biology at Napa Valley College and earned two associate degrees — in natural science and mathematics, and in natural science with an emphasis on life sciences — in preparation for transferring to UC-Berkeley this fall. He was recently recognized in The Biophysical Journal, the peer-reviewed scientific journal of the Biophysical Society, as coauthor of the study “Block of the Cardiac Potassium Channel HERG by Cations.”
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This year, Huzaifa received one of only 10 Hite Scholar awards conferred nationwide by the Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society, recognizing the academic achievement of students at two-year colleges. He was also named a semi-finalist on the Phi All-USA Academic Team and a 2020 Coca-Cola Academic Team Gold Scholar, one of only 50 nationwide.
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Huzaifa said that he has “always had a thirst for knowledge and been interested in science,” and that understanding molecular and cellular biology will give him a solid foundation for his two years at UC Berkeley preparing for med school, with an eye on perhaps pursuing cardiology and cardiatric surgery. When asked about his hopes for medical school, Huzaifa is humble but eager when he allows that “either UCSF or Stanford is the dream.”
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And following his practice of being of service to others, he offers some sage advice: “Remember that your life is like a sine wave, with ups and downs. If you are down, don’t forget it’s going to go back up. And when it does go back up, you’ll be more durable and fulfilled at the end.”
