GHSI Officers

Pietro Cicalese - President and Co-Founder

Pietro Cicalese is currently a fourth year biomedical engineering student at the University of Houston, where he founded the Global Humanitarian Student Initiative (GHSI) alongside Dennis Kunichoff. He believes that students have the capacity and will power to manage and maintain service projects without having to rely on third party entities, which require additional monetary investment. He understood this when he travelled to Haiti with the student group called Friends of Haiti (FOH), where he played a powerful role alongside other students to provide quality healthcare with the help of medical professionals. This experience drove him to organize other projects with GHSI, including a service trip to the island of Sicily in the summer of 2016 to help the migrant and refugee populations that are found there. After graduating, he intends to enroll in an M.D. Ph.D. program to become a neurosurgeon and neuroscientist, eventually providing the same healthcare to those in need as the medical professionals that worked with him in college.

Dennis Kunichoff - Vice President and Co-Founder

Dennis Kunichoff, a recent UH graduate awarded two B.S. degrees in Biology and Psychology, attributes his drive for humanitarian work to an international upbringing and the fortune of a good education. His first medical service trip to Haiti, in the summer of 2015, revealed to him the degree of impact a group of dedicated students can have on a community in need and since then he has strongly advocated for the importance of student empowerment in providing community service. Dennis' enjoys reading, playing chess, and a good, thoughtful discussion. He has high aspirations for GHSI and plans to have a major role in seeing them through.

Rabia Pirzada - Treasurer

Rabia is a third year Honors student majoring in Biotechnology and minoring in Biology and Medicine and Society. After graduating in 2018, she plans to attend medical school and become a surgeon. She strongly believes that medicine is a right of all people rather than a privilege to those that can afford it and hopes to be a vehicle through which people immersed in poverty or devastated by war can find affordable/free health care and comfort. Rabia also works with Houston Shoulder to Shoulder, a non-profit organization providing health care to the underserved people of Santa Ana, Honduras. She is very excited to see the positive that GHSI will make in the lives of students and those who they will serve.

Chris Wong - Secretary

Chris is a third-year Honors student pursuing double degrees in Liberal Studies and Biology. As a member of the Houston Premedical Academy, he anticipates graduating from UH in 2018 and attending medical school to prepare for a career in global health or public health. His involvement with Dr. Ognjen Miljanić’s organic chemistry laboratory and Dr. Donald Foss’s developmental cognitive neuroscience research group is his main focus outside of classes and GHSI. Chris is also an LGBT Cougar Ally, enthusiastic racquetball novice, extravagant foodie, and dedicated violinist for two health community orchestras.

Arianne Felicitas - Historian

Arianne is a sophomore honors student who is majoring in History and minoring in Medicine and Society. She would like to attend medical school after graduating from UH. Arianne is passionate about humanitarian work, whether it pertains to the local community or the rest of the world. Aside from GHSI, she is also involved with HOSA (Future Health Professionals), CLASS Coogs, and MD Anderson. Additionally, she is a research assistant for Dr. Tracey Ledoux's toddler observation study.