Richards honors alumni for Arab American History Month

To recognize Arab American History Month, Community High School District 218 has celebrated staff members and graduates who have achieved noteworthy success academically, professionally, artistically, in public service, or in some other field of endeavor.

Richards High School celebrated many alumni including:

Sami Alqadi, Class of 2018

Sami will earn his bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and Linguistics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in December 2021. Already he’s served software engineering Internships at Country Financial and Capital One. “Currently, I'm a part-time software engineer for Caterpillar,” he said.

This summer he will serve another internship in software engineering at Facebook. He also has worked as an instructor during his time in college. “I was the lead instructor for an honors introductory computer science course at UIUC during the spring and fall 2020 semesters. I prepared and presented weekly lectures to 200 students, and managed the course infrastructure,” he added.

Shahd Smadi, Class of 2016

Shahd earned her bachelor’s degree, graduating Summa Cum Laude, in Neuroscience from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2020. She currently works as a medical lab technician at Central Clinical Labs. Prior to that, she worked at ICCD Academy as an Arabic and Islamic Studies teacher.

The university recognized her as a UIC Honors College Merit Award recipient in the fall of 2018 and again in the spring of 2019. She made the Dean’s List from 2018-2020.

Shahd will begin her master’s degree program to further her study of neuropsychology at the University of Chicago in the fall.

Noor Hammam, Class of 2012

Noor earned a bachelor’s degree in Neuroscience from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2017 and a master’s degree in Biomedical Sciences from Midwestern University in 2021.

She currently works as a medical scribe with Scribe American, which allows her to continue research that she began during graduate school. Noor plans on presenting her research on experimental biology this month and intends to begin medical school soon.

Amer Khairallah, Class of 2016

Amer earned admission to the Honors Program at the University of Illinois at Chicago. While at UIC, he was a member of student government, Alpha Phi Omega service fraternity, the Muslim Student Association and Medlife, where he completed an international mission trip to Nicaragua.

Amer graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in Disability and Human Development, with correlational research in societal and economic impacts on the developmental and aging process of adults with Down Syndrome. He earned admission into a Physician’s Assistant program at the University of the Sciences in West Philadelphia. Amer plans to start his rotations this fall with an elective rotation in oncology.

Jasser Khairallah, Class of 2008

The president of his senior class at Richards, Jasser earned a bachelor’s degree, graduating Cum Laude, in Psychology and Mathematics at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He also earned departmental Honors with Distinction.

Jasser then earned a bachelor’s degree in Medical Sciences, graduating Summa Cum Laude, from Dominican University. He then studied at A.T. Still University--Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine. He was able to attend medical school with a full scholarship from the National Health Service Corps (NHSC).

Jasser will complete his residency at Northwestern University in May. He will then begin a fellowship at Stanford University in July, then followed by a research fellowship at Yale.

Dr. Sarah Bawadi Zayyad, Class of 2005

Shepard High School teacher and Richards graduate Kelsey Clifford wrote this heartfelt biography about her:

Sarah is a multi-site center physical therapist manager for RUSH Physical Therapy. After high school, she earned a bachelor’s degree from St. Xavier University in science with a minor in Middle Eastern Studies. She continued her education at Midwestern University in Downers Grove where she graduated with her doctorate in Physical Therapy.

Sarah tore her ACL playing basketball at Richards. Going through therapy for her injury made her realize that this was the career she wanted to pursue!

Sarah’s clinics are in Oak Lawn and Moraine Valley. She loves serving the community that she grew up in. She especially loves treating athletes and runners.

Nethaum Mizyed, Class of 2013

Nethaum earned a bachelor’s degree in Neuroscience from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2017. While there, she worked in a research lab that studies co-activation in bilingual language processing.

She received second place for her research and she was published as the second author of the study in 2018. She then completed her master’s degree as a physician assistant from the University of Wisconsin at Madison in May 2020. She has also been teaching Arabic and Islamic Studies, even virtually during the pandemic.