By Marc R. Masferrer, University Communications and Marketing
Spring graduate Alexandra Lopez has long made a habit of carefully taking care of her health. A former volleyball player, Lopez started working with a personal trainer when she was a teenager and to this day, she tracks the nutritional content of what she eats. It’s all part of a discipline and a mindset that have nurtured Lopez’s success as a student and as a student government leader at the University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee — and a clear vision for what comes next:
Taking care of children.
Lopez, a biology major and a member of the Judy Genshaft Honors College, lights up at the prospect of someday being a mom but for now, she plans to earn a master’s degree from the USF College of Public Health with a concentration in nutrition and dietetics. She originally was planning for medical school but Lopez determined a different path was the best way she could use her career choice to advocate for kids, especially their nutritional needs.
Children deserve a voice to speak for them because they are such a vulnerable population. Because of that, they are often overlooked, I want them to know that I hear them. I want to be there to help them get on the right track.
Alexandra Lopez
Alexandra Lopez, a biology student at the USF Sarasota-Manatee campus, recieves Golden Bull award.
Lopez hopes that through her close attention to her own health and nutrition, she can be a role model for the children she works with as a pediatric nutritionist.
“Being health conscious is a mentality that was instilled in me at a young age,” Lopez said. “I compare that to people who were not raised that way and it’s quite disheartening, because if they had had a healthy mindset at a young age when minds are so impressionable, I like to think it would have stuck with them.”
Setting a similarly positive example for other students has been a hallmark of Lopez’s tenure as a leader in the campus student government at a time of tremendous growth and change at USF Sarasota-Manatee, in the wake of the pandemic and its emergence this year as a residential, full-service campus.
Leading and setting a positive example for your peers can, at times, be challenging, but the pressure has not been too much for Lopez. Students have elected her to student government, and she also has earned the respect of faculty and campus leaders.
In February, Lopez was the student speaker at the kickoff for the Future of Education Think Tank, part of an organic, faculty-driven effort to bring together dynamic, interdisciplinary research teams drawn from across USF. And on the eve of commencement, Lopez was named a recipient of a Golden Bull Award, one of the university’s highest honors, which recognizes students who embody the university’s mission, vision, values and spirit.
Lopez thrived academically on the close-knit Sarasota-Manatee campus. Professors -- like Lopez’s favorite, chemistry instructor Linda Barbeto -- have the time and interest to provide students with more one-on-one attention, and students like Lopez can develop deeper relationships with campus administrators. Lopez credited a letter of recommendation from USF Sarasota-Manatee Regional Chancellor Emerita Karen Holbrook, with whom she frequently met as a member of student leadership, as key to her admission to the College of Public Health this fall.
Alexandra Lopez
“She was the chancellor of the school but it became more than that. I looked at her as a friend, as a mentor, as somebody who could give me advice, as somebody who I could tell my future plans to,” Lopez said. “She always gave me the moral support I needed.”
Lopez held top positions in the student government — as governor in 2023-24 and as lieutenant governor in 2024-25 — as USF Sarasota-Manatee transformed to become a residential campus with the construction and opening last August of the Student Center and Atala Residence Hall. Lopez doesn’t live on campus but she said the new building, as a place where students can gather and participate in activities after their day in the classroom is done, has remade USF Sarasota-Manatee's identity.
"A student center is a big aspect of the college experience. Not having it made me feel like I was missing out on something,” she said. “Having a student center makes us a more established campus.”
Lopez said her experiences with student government have defined her time at USF Sarasota-Manatee.
The responsibilities of leadership and the demands of her elected position required her to emerge from her “comfort zone and put me in positions where I never envisioned myself to be in when I initially started here.”
Lopez said her involvement with student government has fostered some of her closest friendships.
“Student government, historically, may be intimidating. Here, it's a completely different dynamic,” she said “It's a friendly, warm, non-competitive environment. People use this word all the time to describe this campus, but it's family."
Whether it’s as part of student government or in a future career as a pediatric nutritionist, Lopez is driven by a strong work ethic and a selflessness shaped by her religious faith, qualities that have repeatedly led her to find and fill opportunities to lead at USF Sarasota-Manatee —and have prepared her for future success.
Lopez traced her ability to lead to her time as an athlete.
"When I was younger in school, I was definitely not a leader. In school, I was very shy. I didn't I didn't like to be the leader of the group. I didn't like to speak. But you put me in any sports setting, and I was captain of the team,” Lopez said. “I was the one that had to call the shots. I was the one that had to lead people, bring people together.
“So, I've always had it in me.”