Featured Scholar: Camalah Saleh
Camalah Saleh is a senior SFHC scholar double majoring in Political Science and Communication. She has interned for Fresno City Councilmember Tyler Maxwell, the Fresno County District Attorney’s Office, and U.S. Senator Alex Padilla. In the fall, she represented Fresno State as a Panetta Intern on Capitol Hill in the office of Congresswoman Linda Sánchez.
On campus, Camalah has held leadership roles in Students for Palestinian Liberation, League of Women Voters, and Camp Kesem. She is also a member of the Barking Bulldogs Debate Team, competing both regionally and nationally. For over two years, she worked as a student assistant at The Maddy Institute. Most recently, she was elected as the Fresno State Associated Students, Inc. (ASI) President for the 2025-26 academic year.
Camalah has also been the recipient of various scholarships and program opportunities. In March 2025, she traveled to San Francisco to interview as a finalist for the Harry S. Truman Scholarship, the premier graduate fellowship in the United States for those pursuing careers as public service leaders. She is the first Fresno State student to be named a finalist for this prestigious scholarship. (Read more on Fresno State News.)
Harry S. Truman Scholarship finalists.
Camalah was given the opportunity to attend a dinner with her fellow finalists before the interview. She said, “I expected this dinner to be the finalists trying to intimidate each other with our accomplishments, but it was far from that. I almost forgot they were technically my competition due to how nice everyone was and how we just all wanted to connect.
“People from the Central Valley and my background don’t tend to be in rooms like this.”
“In the end, they [the interviewers] gave me 2 minutes to say any last remarks, and I just thanked them for allowing me this opportunity, as people from the Central Valley and my background don’t tend to be in rooms like this. I admit I got emotional because I realized at that moment that it was over and regardless of the outcome, I made it that far.
“The rest of the day we spent in the courthouse until everyone was done. The other finalists and I played card games, discussed our different schools, exchanged social media, and took a group picture. I left that room with 11 new friends who never once made me feel as if they were better than me or like they viewed me as competition—and vice versa. Every single one of us deserved to be in that room. While I didn’t feel the best after my interview, I did feel good just knowing that whoever gets it is kind.”
(L-R) Guadalupe Lopez-Trejo, Giselle Gomez, and Camalah Saleh, the three SFHC scholars to attend SIEML in May 2025.
Last month, Camalah was one of eight Fresno State students to attend the Summer Institute for Emerging Managers and Leaders (SIEML), an all-expenses-paid program that provides sophomore and junior undergraduates at historically black colleges and universities and Hispanic-serving institutions with hands-on business and leadership experience. Alumni qualify for two years of full tuition and fee fellowships at any of the six UC graduate business schools.
Currently, Camalah is participating in the Junior Summer Public Policy and International Affairs (PPIA) Program at UC Berkeley, which is an innovative, fully funded, three-week program for college juniors who have demonstrated an interest in public service and can contribute to more diverse perspectives in public policy. One week of the program took place in Washington, D.C. with NextGen. The NextGen Summer Policy Academy connects participants with policymakers and policy frameworks, giving them a firsthand understanding of how public policy can be used to build a more equitable, sustainable, and just world.
After graduating from Fresno State, Camalah intends to pursue a joint MPP/JD focused on immigration. She plans to open an immigration law firm in Sanger, CA—the town her family migrated to when she was three years old.