Tel: 602-542-5770
President: Allyssa White
"Every man is free to rise as far as he's able or willing, but the degree to which he thinks determines the degree to which he'll rise." - Ayn Rand
When Allyssa White first walked into her Health Career Education class she had no idea how much it would impact her future. Allyssa started her HOSA journey her senior year of high school and has never looked back. Her amazing teachers inspired her to further pursue her goals within HOSA which has led her to the state officer candidacy. Originally extremely shy and introverted, HOSA has allowed her to come out of her shell, given her wonderful opportunities, and allowed her to make tons of meaningful friendships. Allyssa is also involved in her school life. At school she has been a member of National Honors Society for two years, a TA for her library, and a key club member. Outside of school, Allyssa finds herself enjoying dance, reading, and caring for her many pets. Allyssa has been a Hip Hop dancer for four years and greatly enjoys learning and coming up with new choreographies. She is an avid reader, and enjoys books from authors ranging from Ayn Rand to J.K. Rowling. For her future, Allyssa is pursuing a Major of Medical Sciences and hopes to be a Forensic Medical Examiner in her future. Through handwork and perseverance, Allyssa hopes to make this year one to remember.
Region 1 Vice President: Karly Barnes
Region 2 Vice President: Maisy Salcido-Lugo
Maisy Salcido-Lugo feels excited and honored to be a HOSA State officer candidate this year. Being able to run for state office was ideal for her because she loves both leadership and medicine. Maisy is ecstatic to be able to share her knowledge and care for others. Maisy grew up around physicians and nurses in her family which is where her love for this field originated from. Since she was a child, she knew she wanted to be in the medical/health-science field so that she could help others.
Her HOSA journey started her freshman year of high school. Maisy has been a part of HOSA for three years and has loved every second of it. She is currently the historian for this year’s charter. To continue, going to different events and competitions for HOSA has taught Maisy what integrity and compassion truly is. She currently attends Buckeye Union High School as a junior. At school Maisy is involved in many clubs and sports. She is a part of the Sports medicine and Medical Assisting program where she has learned the evaluation, diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation of athletes and their injuries.
Apart from HOSA, Maisy is involved with NHS and Youth Alive. She has played volleyball since she was twelve years old through her schools and through clubs. Along with volleyball, Maisy has been a singer and a drummer for her church band for 3 years. She enjoys leading and sharing her thoughts on church activities to the rest of her band members.
Because of her medical roots and knowledge she gained through sports medicine and medical assisting, Maisy hopes to pursue a career as an orthopedic trauma surgeon. She has a clear vision of how she wants her future to look. She will also work her hardest to be able to achieve what she wants in order for her and others around her to succeed. She understands that it will be a rough journey to where she wants to end up. This only makes her want to be completely dedicated and work as hard as she can to achieve her goals.
Success is something hard to get but not impossible to achieve if one works for it. Maisy believes that she will be able to achieve success in her life by being involved in HOSA. She also believes that the health care profession continues to grow rapidly everyday due to HOSA students who are passionate and eager to help, learn, and be better.
Region 4 Vice President: Alexandra Husted
Lexi Husted is honored to be the Region 4 Vice President of Arizona HOSA. She is excited about connecting with people and contributing to something larger than what she can accomplish locally. Lexi also feels it would help her improve her skills at communication, teamwork, responsibility, and leadership.
This is Lexi’s second year in HOSA and she has served as her chapters Secretary and current Vice President. She enjoyed these positions because she was able play a bigger role in helping her community and act as a role model for fellow chapter members. Last year she competed in Public Service Announcement at her first Student Leadership Conference and she was able to gain knowledge and experience from competing.
Lexi is a Junior at Marana High School and participates in many school extracurricular activities such as, National Honors Society and she works as a student athletic trainer after school. She has also is an ambassador for Sports Medicine and has been awarded with Student of the Month for the CTE Department.
Lexi plans on attending Northern Arizona University to study for a career as a Physical Therapist. She wants to be able to help people overcome injuries and deliver exceptional healthcare. She was deeply inspired by Marcus Engel after hearing his presentation at the 2019 Student Leadership Conference in Tucson. His story touched her and moved her to learn more about compassionate healthcare. It inspired Lexi to be that caregiver for a person in need, holding a hand and letting someone know, “I’m here.”
Postsecondary/Collegiate Vice President: Fatma Khalaf
Fatma is incredibly honored to be your 2020-2021 Postsecondary/collegiate vice president. She is looking forward to meeting and connecting with HOSA members from all over Arizona. This year was Fatma’s second year as an Arizona HOSA member, in which she served as the state parliamentarian. Fatma is eager to continue her HOSA journey if she is elected as a state officer!
During her first year of HOSA, she attended the Fall Leadership Conference and competed at State Leadership Conference where she placed in the Top 10 for Researched Persuasive Writing and Speaking. She had the amazing opportunity of attending the International Leadership Conference in the summer in which she represented Arizona HOSA and had the chance to network with members from all over the country. She also attended the Washington Leadership Academy, where she was able to speak with our state representatives and advocate for CTSO organizations. This experience allowed Fatma to discover her passion for healthcare advocacy as it combines her love for healthcare and public speaking.
Currently, Fatma attends the University of Arizona majoring in Public Health and minoring in Psychology. She plans to use these degrees to help her achieve her dream career of working for health care administration, policy and public health management.
Outside of HOSA, Fatma likes to travel as she spends most of her breaks from school traveling to different states or different countries. When that isn’t possible, Fatma spends a lot of time with her friends and family. She also enjoys cooking and learning how to make different types of pasta as it is her favorite food!
Fatma knows that as a future health professional, a great amount of hard work, passion, and dedication are required. Fatma has been inspired through her journey by the words of Pele, “Success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice, and most of all, love of what you are doing.” She is very excited for the opportunity to serve Arizona HOSA for another year!
Secretary: Charli Wilson
Charli Wilson is excited to be the 2020-2021 Arizona HOSA State Secretary. She cannot wait to see what this year of HOSA brings and is ready to share all that HOSA has taught her thus far to other members.
Charli is the third daughter out of four. She looks up to every single one of her sisters (maybe not literally her oldest sister) and is inspired by their hard work to reach their goals and ability to not let others’ opinions get to them. Charli spends her free time either reading, writing, or running. Being able to escape reality and enter a new world is exciting and Charli wants to bring the same enjoyment that she gets from books to others through her writing. When it comes to running, she often feels a sense of freedom and relaxation, but her favorite is when she brings her dogs along as her running partners.
Charli is currently a senior at Ironwood High School. There she is involved in cross country, track and field, and National Honors Society. She has been a part of National Honors Society since her junior year and has volunteered at a variety of places such as Petsmart, Santa Hustle, and cleaned up her school’s bleachers after football games. Charli has been running on a cross country team since the third grade, but her time on Ironwood’s team has definitely been her favorite. The team welcomed her with open arms and she feels they have taught her the importance of teammates and what is possible if you work together. Charli’s favorite memory is summer practices because even though the whole team had to wake up before six in the morning to go run, they found a way to make practice fun and goofed around together.
Charli has a huge love for animals and has always known she wanted to work with them in the future, which made her decide to join the Northwest West-MEC veterinary sciences program her junior year. This program is not only helping her get a head start on her career goal of becoming a veterinary technician, but has also pushed her to come out of her shell. She would describe herself as the shy type that mostly kept to herself before enrolling in the veterinary program, but since then has taken on many leadership roles including her junior class manager last year, and senior shift lead and teacher assistant this year. Her classmates encouraged her to speak up more and finding people who have similar goals as her has definitely brought her some confidence.
Charli joined HOSA through the West-MEC veterinary sciences program, which means this is her second year being a part of the club. Her first year in HOSA, Charli ran for office and was elected her chapter’s vice president. This year, Charli ran for office again and this time around was elected senior class secretary. Both years, Charli attended the Fall Leadership Conference, and this year she competed in the Health Career Display at Regionals. However, what Charli was most excited about was that this would have been her first time competing at the State Leadership Conference for veterinary sciences. Throughout her two years of HOSA she has learned the importance of working with a team, how to manage her time more wisely, and she has had the opportunity to form strong friendships and connections she will forever cherish.
Historian/Reporter: Mina Jabar
From the rural community of Yuma, Mina Jabar is honored to be your 2020-2021 Historian/ Reporter. She is excited to meet all new and returning members, while pushing them to strive for greatness, and promote strength, unity, and passion.
Finishing her senior year at Kofa High School, she is getting ready for her freshman year of college as a biology major. Mina has been a part of HOSA for 2 years. She also danced for 3 years, cheered for 2 years, and graduated from her district's certified nursing assistant program, while serving as an officer to her nursing chapter.
Having an outgoing personality, she loves to work with kids, meet and network with new people. Mina loves kids and meeting new people so much, that at 17 years old she is the co-founder and coach of the first ever soccer cheer youth team in Yuma AZ.
“You can design and create, and build the most wonderful place in the world. But it takes people to make the dream a reality.” - Walt Disney. Mina has lived by this quote, because from all her experiences working with teams she truly believes that a team makes the dream work.
Parliamentarian: Spandan Gandhi
Spandan Gandhi is thrilled to be the 2020-2021 Parliamentarian. He is driven by the thought of connecting with fellow HOSA members and sharing his passion for medicine through his service of Arizona HOSA.
Growing up, it was clear to Spandan that he wanted to enter the medical field. His reasoning for it has always been simple: What could be more rewarding in a career than directly caring for others?
His journey began when he enrolled in a Sports Medicine class in his high school. Spandan was introduced to HOSA by his advisor. He wasn’t familiar with the organization, so he took two State OLTs out of curiosity. Spandan qualified for both of them, and he was on his way to the State Leadership Conference.
SLC not only changed Spandan’s perception of HOSA, but also his perception of health professions as whole. He discovered a wide range of opportunities that he was previously unaware of. HOSA allowed Spandan to prepare for a career in medicine during his time in high school. Spandan then became more involved in his local chapter as a member. He would frequently go to his advisor and discuss upcoming events both in his community and at the state level. This came back to him when he was asked whether he wanted to run to be a State Officer for the 2020-2021 year.
Spandan said yes without hesitation. HOSA had provided him with many experiences that he was grateful for, and he wanted to give back to the organization. He’s ready to take on the responsibility of being a state officer because it’s a way for him to serve HOSA and develop his skills as a leader.
Outside of HOSA, Spandan is a founding member of his school’s drama club, and he runs a D&D campaign out of a club called “Geek Guild”. Both allow Spandan to be creative in his own ways and share them with others; whether it's delivering a line in an unconventional tone or designing a new setting for his group’s next adventure. Spandan has also discovered a new hobby this year - reading. He finds himself reading more and more as time goes on.
A quote Spandan enjoys is from one of his favorite writers, Fyodor Dostoevsky, ““It is not the brains that matter most, but that which guides them — the character, the heart, generous qualities, progressive ideas”. It reminds Spandan that as long as he keeps a healthy balance within himself, his work, his hobbies, and his relationships, everything is bound to go well.
Region 3 Vice President: Lydia Pastore
As a sophomore in the Biotechnology program at Red Mountain High School in Mesa, she has not only acquired various laboratory skills which allow her to function productively and efficiently in the lab, but has also developed leadership skills which will allow her to promote and take part in a fluid team dynamic on this year’s officer team.
As a freshman, she had just moved to AZ from CO, and sought after a club or organization where she’d find a group of people with a passion for health-science similar to hers. She found this within HOSA, and since, has had the privilege of serving her chapter as President, where she’s developed the skills of communication, leadership, and delegation.
This will be Lydia’s third year in HOSA, and her progression from member to voting delegate, chapter president, state competitor in Biomedical Laboratory Sciences, and state officer candidate has made the journey memorable and showcases her ever-growing love for all that HOSA has to offer.
Outside of school, Lydia recently completed an internship in the Huijben Lab of Evolutionary Medicine at ASU, where she assists the research team in determining whether insecticide resistance in Aedes aegypti mosquitoes is sex-linked or evolutionarily related.
Additionally, she utilizes her leadership skills and passion for cultivating the love of science in others as a Student Expert-Mentor in the Science Buddies: Ask an Expert forum, where she answers questions that students in grades K-8 pose surrounding their science fair projects.
She is constantly looking to expand her knowledge and skills in order to address scientific challenges and push the limits of her leadership.
Though her incessant desire to perform academically and socially to the very best of her ability may be identified as perfectionism, she tries to live by a quote said by the brilliant neurosurgeon Dr. Paul Kalanithi, which reads "You can’t ever reach perfection, but you can believe in an asymptote toward which you are ceaselessly striving.”
