2024-2025
National Board Elections
The annual APAMSA National Board Election is held every year during the week of the National Conference, and an opportunity for APAMSA student members across the nation to get involved in the organization’s leadership. Active APAMSA members who qualify, are eligible to run for a position on the National Board through an application process as outlined below. Candidates are elected onto the APAMSA National Board by the House of Delegates (HOD), which is made up of chapter representatives who vote on the behalf of their respective local chapter. All elected National Board officers will serve on the leadership for a 1-year term (14 months for President/President-elect) until the next Election Day (concurrent with the National Conference) is held.
Election Details
Below are the APAMSA National Elections winners for those of you who were not present at the end of our conference! Let’s give a warm welcome to our 2024-2025 APAMSA National Board.
Executive Board
- President Elect/President: Victoria Shi (UMKC)
- External Affairs VP/CFO: Yichen (Wendy) Fan (OHSU)
- Communications VP: Ashley Tam (OHSU)
- Health Affairs VP: Alexander Lê (Texas A&M SOM)
- Advocacy VP: Annie Yao (UConn)
- Diversity VP: Sandra Phanita Kumwong (Touro COM-Harlem)
- Strategy VP: Tori Nguyen (UCI)
- Membership VP (3 seats): Amelia Huynh (Pacific Northwest), Paul Tominez (UCSF), Jessica Hsueh (Georgetown University)
External Affairs Branch
- Sponsorship Director (2 seats): Jason Hu (NYU), Brandon Park (UMKC)
- Fundraising Director: James Maxwell Chua (Touro COM-Nevada)
- National Conference Director (3-5): TBA, but from Duke Medicine!
Communications Branch
- Editor Director: Xueying Zheng (University of Nevada, Reno)
- Social Media Directors (2 seats): Andrew Leung (Hackensack Meridian SOM), John Tran (McGovern Medical School)
- Network Director: Angeline Yu (Stanford Premed)
- Database Director: Lara Castaneda (Touro COM-Middletown)
Health Affairs Branch
- Community Outreach Director: Hannah Lee (UCLA David Geffen SOM)
- Bone Marrow Director: Stephhen Kwong (Texas A&M SOM)
- Cancer Initiatives Director: Rachel Kim (LECOM)
- Mental Health Director: Heejung (Julie) Kim (Nova Southeastern University-Allopathic)
- Diabetes & Cardiovascular Diseases Director: Jessica Ngo (UTMB)
- Hepatitis B/C Director (3, non-elected): open seat, open seat, open seat
Advocacy Branch
- Health Policy Director: Sarah Kim (Stanford-postgrad/premed)
- Medical Education Director: Megan Jiao (McGovern Medical School)
- Rapid Response Director: Nataliyah Tahir (UNLV)
- Director of Organized Medicine: Xianzhen (Jennifer) Deng (California Health Sciences University)
Diversity Branch
- Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Director: open seat
- South Asian Director: Aliza Ali (University of Incarnate World School of Osteopathic Medicine)
- Southeast Asian Director: Kimsa Nguyen (California Health Sciences University)
- LGBTQ+ Director: Natashha Arief (California Northstate COM)
- Women in Medicine Director: Anne Nguyen (New York Medical College)
Strategy Branch
- Alumni Director (2 seats): Ellis Jang (California Northstate COM), Jess Qu (Mayo Clinic Alix SOM-Arizona)
- Pre-Health Director (2 seats): Helen Gu (OSU), Stephanie Kim (UTMB)
- Research Director: Jonathan Shih (UCSF)
- Professional Development Director: Reanna Doña-Termine (Albert Einstein)
Membership Branch
- Region I Director (2): Melissa Calica (Tufts), open seat
- Region II Director (4): Ker-Cheng Chen (SUNY Downstate), Ruby Chung (SUNY Downstate), Sarah Lee (NYU LISOM), Yue Jiao Jiang (Touro COM-Harlem)
- Region III Director (3): Jeffrey Wang (Drexel), Stephen Chien (Drexel), Sandra Yang (Sidney Kimmel)
- Region IV Director (3): Ayahiro Daiana Takashima (Emory), Yuna Seo (PCOM-North Georgia), Neil Vuppala (Alabama COM)
- Region V Director (3): Sunshine Liu (MSUCOM), Jordan Sontz (MSUCOM), open seat
- Region VI Director (4): Nicholas Wu (SLU), Stephanie Ngo (University Kansas SOM), Vivian Hoang (Kansas City University-Joplin), Gautami Galpalli (SIU)
- Region VII Director (3): Lyndon Bui (University of Arizona), Philip Nguyen-Powanda (UArizona COM-Phoenix), Thy Nguyen (UArizona-Premed)
- Region VIII Director (4): Naomi Tsai (OHSU), Juia Liu (OHSU), Christine Nguyen (PNW)
- Region IX Director (3): Francis Khuong (TTUHSC), James Chen (UTMB), Jerry Liu (Texas A&M SOM)
- First Round Applications: Due Sunday, February 18th, 2024 @ 8:59pm PST/11:59pm EST
- Second Round Applications for Open Positions: Due Friday, February 23rd, 2024 @ 8:59pm PST/11:59pm EST
- Election Day: Saturday, March 2nd, 2024
- Voting for HOD: Ballots due Saturday, March 2nd, 2024 @ 3:00pm PST
- Elections Results Announced: Closing ceremony on Saturday, March 2nd, 2024 @ 5:00pm PST
- Third Round Applications (Post-Election) for Open Positions: Due Sunday, March 17th, 2024 @ 8:59pm PST/11:59pm EST, only the newly elected National Board will be participating
You may declare your candidacy for up to two OPEN positions on the National Board.
- Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Director (1 seat)
- Region I Director (1 seat)
- Region V Director (1 seat)
- Hepatitis Directors (3 seats), selected by the new Health Affairs Vice President
Note: In order to qualify as a candidate for the APAMSA National Board, you must be an official APAMSA member. If you are not yet a member, you can join APAMSA membership at any time of the year. Learn more →
1. Write a candidate statement
Each candidate will have the opportunity to submit a written statement demonstrating their candidacy for a position. The statement will have a 200-word limit (300-word limit for President/President-elect). If a submission exceeds the word limit, it will be automatically truncated on the Candidates Brochure.
2. Record a video
All National Board candidates must present a 2-minute video demonstrating their candidacy for their first choice position. If applying to multiple Director positions, videos for subsequent choice of positions are optional. However, if running for multiple Executive Board (E-board) positions, a 2-minute candidate video is required for each Executive Board candidacy. A 5-sec buffer will be allowed before and after the video, however if the video exceeds the time limit, it will automatically be truncated on the Candidates Brochure.
3. Provide a headshot
A professional headshot is required, which will accompany the rest of your campaign materials when they are uploaded to the Candidates Brochure.
Who can run?
All candidates must be official members of APAMSA
Medical/graduate students, post-graduates, and pre-health students are all eligible
There are no term limits on any positions, current/past officers may run again if they choose to do so
All elected officers must agree to serve for the entirety of the term. All positions (with the exception of President/President-elect) are 1-year terms.
Executive Board candidates will require at least 1 term of previous experience on the National Board
Individuals who have served as house staff at any point before or during the term are ineligible for National Board positions. This includes:
- Individuals who have completed internship/residency
- Individuals who have started but not completed internship/residency
- Current final year medical students planning to graduate in 2024 and begin internship/residency
Who votes?
The House of Delegates (HOD) are made up of individuals selected to represent their local chapter. Each active chapter is eligible to send one delegate to the HOD, and each delegate will have one ballot (for each position) when participating in the National Board Election. Digital ballots will be sent to each chapter delegate’s private email (which are tracked by the elections committee) to ensure no double entries. Candidates are elected by majority voting. All voting results are recorded anonymously.
If you are a chapter representative and have not yet registered for the HOD, click here →
Due to our capped attendance, only virtual HOD registration is available at this time.
How are votes counted?
Votes are collected using RankedVote.co, and the voting platform is optimized for anonymity, security, and ease of access and use. The voting platform will only accessible by registered voting delegates, and all votes will be anonymous. The RankedVote.co platform uses a ranked voting system, which we implemented last year. If there are more than 2 candidates running for a position, delegates must rank each candidate in order of preference. This ensures that if their first-choice candidate wins another position they applied for (and had preference over), then the delegate’s vote will go to the next-best candidate the selected. The results of the votes will be automatically generated by RankedVote.co, and carefully reviewed by the Elections Committee.
FAQ
Executive Board positions require at least one year of service on the National Board because these supervisory roles require familiarity with all positions in the branch. See position descriptions in the Election Pamphlet for detailed requirements.
For the position of the President-Elect/President, at least one year of experience on the Executive Board is highly recommended.
Yes! For any Executive Board position that has two or more candidates, they will be sitting on a panel to allow for a Q&A session during the House of Delegates meeting on Saturday, March 2nd, during the HOD session. Come prepared for questions (HOD representatives) and answers (candidates)!
In the past, individuals from other health-related schools have made significant contributions to APAMSA, and we are happy to see this trend continue.
Yes. You can submit statements for up to 3 positions as long as you meet the qualification criteria. However, all candidates should give great consideration to each position that they are applying to.
The order of your candidacy submissions will be treated as the order of your position preferences. If a candidate wins the vote for their first position, they will automatically be withdrawn from the race for the other position(s).
Yes, the total number of positions you apply for, in the first and second round combined, should not exceed 3.
No, although we highly encourage it so you can meet and talk with the voting delegates in person and be present for the live elections results announcement. We also have a mandatory Sunday transition meeting in-person/online (hybrid format) for both outgoing and incoming officers.
The Leadership Transition Meeting is held every year the day after the National Conference. It is an orientation meeting for all incoming new officers, and a session for outgoing officers to introduce their branch/position to their successors. It will occur at the 2023 National Conference weekend on Sunday, March 5th at 9 AM – 12 PM EST.
Chapters must register their representative to the House of Delegates every year before the National Conference in order to receive a ballot. The number of participating delegates may range between 100-200 each year. For the 2024 APAMSA Elections, we are anticipating 179 delegates, one for each active APAMSA chapter.
There will be a run-off vote, details TBA soon.
Currently there are no rules against running for a position on the National Board while concurrently representing your local chapter at the annual House of Delegates meeting. However, please keep in mind that the House of Delegate vote is for the local chapter as a whole, and not a reflection of individual preferences.
Although we try our best to fill every elected-position via the annual elections process, we may still end up with unfulfilled seats after the National Conference. In this scenario, applications will re-open for all APAMSA members, and officers will be selected based on a vote by the new National Board (not the House of Delegates). All members are encouraged to apply, especially if you had ran for a position but did not win the election.
Feel free to contact elections@apamsa.org with anymore questions.