Alessandra Norris was born in Tampa, Florida as a first-generation American but from a young age, predominantly grew up in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She attended the Universidad de Belgrano and graduated with a Bachelor of Science, in Biology. She completed her undergraduate thesis in the laboratory of Dr. Carlos Luzzani in the FLENI institute (Center for the Fight Against Infant Neurological Diseases), leading to co-authorship on two publications. Following, she joined the University of Florida in 2017 to begin her doctoral degree in the Biomedical Science Program at the College of Medicine. She initially joined Dr. Torres’ lab where she studied the effects of amphetamine on catecholamine release within the brain. However, at the end of 2018 the laboratory changed institutions upon which Alessandra joined the Kopinke Laboratory. Specifically, she was interested in studying the crosstalk between stem cells within skeletal muscle during regeneration. During her time in graduate school, she accrued numerous accomplishments including receiving a T32 training grant from UF’s Neuromuscular Plasticity training program, multiple poster awards and was also given an award in an international Nikon competition for one of her images. She also had the incredible opportunity to present in a conference in Padua, Italy in 2022. Finally, her doctoral dissertation has been recently accepted for publication in Nature Communications. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Florida in the summer of 2023. Alessandra plans to finish completing multiple projects in the Kopinke lab and is still deciding what her next steps will be. Regardless, she is excited to be at the forefront of muscle regeneration and therapeutics.