Rahi Punjabi from Boston area and Tina Lapsia of UConn were among the nine students named the 2015 Washington Leadership Program (WLP) Scholars.

Rahi Punjabi, interning at the Department of Health and Human Services, is a rising sophomore at Columbia University, studying in the School of Engineering and Applied Science. Rahi hails from the Boston area, where he first became interested in healthcare innovation through research experiences at Harvard Medical School, the Broad Institute, and UMass Medical School. This summer, he is looking forward to learning about advancements in our nation’s healthcare system at the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology. In his free time, Rahi enjoys exploring new cities, hiking, and training for his first triathlon.  

Tina Lapsia, interning at the Department of Defense is a graduate of the Honors Program at the University of Connecticut, double majoring in Political Science and Economics and minoring in Spanish. Tina was involved with the Asian American Cultural Center on campus. A major part of her college career was watching and cheering on her college basketball teams, witnessing history being made again and again! Go Huskies! Tina was also a member of Lawyers without Borders, Honors Leadership in Action, and the CLAS Student Leadership Board. Tina likes to keep busy, but she take the time to relax by attending Zumba classes, obsessing over Bollywood movies and political dramas, pigging out on ice cream and chocolate, taking walks, dancing, and hanging out with friends. Tina hopes to earn a law degree, possibly even a joint JD/MBA degree, and enter a career in public service.

For the complete list of WLP Scholars, visit:
http://www.thewlp.com/2015/05/meet-the-2015-wlp-scholars.html

The WLP is a national non-profit organization that is developing the next generation of American leadership from the South Asian community. Our program takes promising college students and places them in a Congressional office for an eight-week summer internship accompanied by a structured leadership curriculum. Students then complete a leadership project applying their learning from the summer and are inducted into a leadership community currently made up of nearly 200 alumni from the 18 years of the program.  Former Congressional leader Richard Gephardt has called it “one of the best programs of its kind on the Hill.”

Since 1995, the WLP has given nearly 200 South Asian American students the opportunity to intern in Washington, DC. In addition to the internship, participants attend special meetings and events to fully expose them to the South Asian American political Diaspora. Past programs and events have included meetings with South Asian American elected officials, Ambassadors and South Asians who are working in Congress, the federal government and local and state agencies.

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