He overcame leukemia, homelessness. Now this teen is getting a bachelor's in neuroscience.

Dallas Salas talks really fast. The Phoenix teenager moves from topic to topic, touching on the many things he's passionate about, most of which revolve around helping others.

But his conversational tone isn't the only thing about Salas that moves at the speed of sound. He's about to complete his bachelor's degree in neuroscience at just 18 years old, and he's got a lot of post-graduate plans.

"I am as open a book as possible," Salas told USA TODAY, "although people usually skip my story because the pages do not match the cover."

Judge this book by his cover, and you'll miss a lot. Salas' story is one filled with twists and turns, ups and downs. His family lost their Scottsdale, Arizona, home to arson when Dallas was a young child, plunging them into homelessness. His father, a member of the Latin Kings, a notoriously violent gang, is incarcerated.

His mom, whose own life is the stuff of novels, overcame domestic violence and has seen her other children struggle with mental illness, hydrocephalus and autism. Dallas had leukemia as a child, though he recently learned he's now in full remission.

His life, he admitted, has been "truly a roller coaster."

"But I think it shows just how resilient I am, how good I am at overcoming obstacles that get in my way."

'A lot of determination and perseverance'

While he was a high school student at Arizona State Preparatory Academy, an online K-12 school, he was also taking courses at Maricopa Community Colleges and Arizona State University. He'll graduate from ASU in December.

When he began studying at ASU Prep, he was struggling academically, but he worked with Kristen Rund, a digital learning success coach.

"He really showed a lot of determination and perseverance," Rund recalled. It's not uncommon for students to struggle when they transition from a traditional, in-person school to virtual study, she said, but Salas understood how important academic success would be for his future.

"I saw him grow, and we'd talk through strategies, discuss what worked for him and what didn't. His strength is really his intrinsic motivation, being the best person academically that he can be." 

Constance Salas, Dallas' mother, saw her son struggling in school, and believed it was because he wasn't feeling sufficiently challenged. A friend told her about ASU Prep, and she thought it might be a better fit for her son.

'When he was 7, he wanted a filing cabinet'

Even as a small child, she said, Dallas was precocious.

"He was never a normal child," she said. Her other children would ask for toys; Dallas wanted pens, pencils and papers to write down his thoughts. "When he was 7, he wanted a filing cabinet."

Constance tried to protect her son from the chaos surrounding him, steering him away from television and giving him books. Still, she gives him all the credit for his accomplishments.

"It's amazing," she said. "He's worked so hard. Sometimes I worried he might burn out, but then I realized that I had planted this seed, and I had to step back and see if it would grow."

That growth, Salas hopes, will lead him to Arizona State's Sandra Day O'Connor School of Law, to pursue his interest in Civil Rights and LGBTQ+ rights. And perhaps eventually to the Mayo Clinic's Alix School of Medicine, where he'd like to study neurosurgery.

Family's early struggles helped mold teen

Salas talks about his past in a very matter-of-fact way: He has a close relationship with his father but acknowledges having to separate the loving parent he knows from the crimes he's accused of committing. He credits holistic medicine with overcoming leukemia, even as he plans a career in modern medicine. His family's struggles, he said, made him into the person he is.

Even his mother, though proud, is surprised at how much he's done in such a short period of time. She thought about scaling back his academic demands so he could enjoy more of his childhood, but her son wasn't having it: "Dallas has outsmarted me every time," she said with a chuckle.

"Living in hotels and not knowing what was going to happen each day really set me up for success," he said. "I'm always expecting the unexpected."

Contact Phaedra Trethan by email at [email protected] or on X (formerly Twitter) @wordsbyphaedra.