Alejandra Campoverdi

Author and first-generation educational advocate

Elon Common Reading Lecture

Thursday, September 18, 2025, 7 p.m.
Alumni Gym, Koury Athletic Center

Alejandra Campoverdi is a nationally recognized advocate for educational opportunity and women’s health, a bestselling author, nonprofit founder and former White House aide to President Barack Obama.

Campoverdi’s bestselling book, “First Gen,” is Elon University’s 2025-26 Common Reading and the winner of the Dolores Huerta Award by the International Latino Book Awards, which also named Campoverdi its 2024 Rising Star in Nonfiction. “First Gen” is the winner of the Martin Cruz Smith Award and was chosen by the Council for Opportunity in Education as their 2024 Opportunity Matters Book Club selection, a nationwide book club for first-generation and low-income students at colleges and universities across the country.

In 2024 Campoverdi founded the First Gen Fund, a nonprofit organization that provides hardship grants directly to first-gen students. She produced the groundbreaking PBS health documentary “Inheritance” and founded the LATINOS & BRCA awareness initiative in partnership with Penn Medicine’s Basser Center for BRCA. Previously, Campoverdi served in the Obama White House as deputy director of Hispanic media.

Campoverdi holds a master’s degree in public policy from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and graduated cum laude from the University of Southern California. She currently serves on the board of the California Community Foundation and is a senior fellow at the USC Center on Communication Leadership and Policy.