Alexandra Turvey, a 21-time All-American Pomona-Pitzer swimmer who majored in biology at Pomona College, is the 2024 NCAA Woman of the Year.
Turvey was announced as the winner Wednesday at the NCAA Convention in Nashville, Tennessee, during a celebration of the Top 30 honorees.
The Woman of the Year award was created in 1991 to recognize graduating female student-athletes who have distinguished themselves in athletics, academics, leadership and community service. Turvey is Pomona-Pitzer's first NCAA Woman of the Year honoree.
"This is truly such an honor. I stand here tonight not just as a single person but as someone who represents thousands of other female student-athletes across the country. Today was such an inspiration, getting to spend time and hang out with 30 inspiring, hardworking, intelligent, powerful women," Turvey said in her acceptance speech for the award. "When I really think about my NCAA experience, I'm struck by how it can bridge so many divides and really create community in the most unexpected places."
Over the course of her four-year career at Pomona, Turvey led her swimming and diving team to immense success. Yet this evolution did not start in the pool. It began out of the water under the fluorescent lights of the weight room.
"When I came (on the team), I think a lot of the women didn't really view the weight room as a space that was really safe or welcoming for them," she recalled. "I made it my personal mission to make the weight room a place where we felt that we owned, and we were in charge and we were welcome."
To start, Turvey took over the aux cord in the weight room, playing music that motivated her and her teammates. She encouraged her teammates to ask someone to step aside when they needed to finish a rep. Soon, her teammates' timidness grew into comfort and then complete confidence.
"Those small, minute changes really became a big tangible force in that four-year period," she said. "Seeing my final year, how we walked in like we owned the place — we'd play our loud music, we'd sometimes be a little bit obnoxious — but seeing that transformation in the span of just four years and sort of cultural shift was really motivating and inspiring."
Turvey's teammates knew her to be a positive force outside the weight room, as well. Turvey admits that she became the bearer of inspirational quotes, even if they were unsolicited by her teammates.
"She's inspirational in and out of the pool. It was great to have her as a role model," said Turvey's former teammate Francesca Coppo. "She was a super motivated swimmer, a super motivated student and just a really good friend."
When Turvey began swimming at 8 years old, she fell in love with the competitive nature of the sport as both an individual and as a part of a team. After growing up in Vancouver, British Columbia, Turvey decided going to America would allow her to pursue collegiate swimming while gaining an education.
Turvey said she always had her eyes on a premedicine track, yet throughout her college experience, she also fell in love with research. This choice was shaped by deeply personal motivations. Turvey's mother was diagnosed with cancer at 35 years old, and Turvey's grandmother died at 48 from cancer. Knowing the early detection of cancer became possible because of research by doctors and scientists, Turvey committed herself to becoming a clinical scientist.
In her time as a student-athlete, she amassed over 2,500 hours of basic science and clinical research and published three articles in scientific journals, including one as first author.
Turvey also dedicated her time to the community. She volunteered as a clinical research student at the British Columbia Children's Hospital and as a Red Cross blood donor ambassador. Additionally, she mentored younger swimmers and organized a fundraiser to prevent child drowning in Thailand.
"From my research experiences in a children's hospital and a genomics lab, I want to tackle seemingly unsolvable problems," she said. "I bring to this career a very strong academic background and four years of research experience, but my greatest contribution is my grit. This comes from intercollegiate athletics. From competitive swimming and teamwork, I know how to work tirelessly to improve and how to motivate and deeply care for others."
Turvey's work ethic has extended beyond the classroom and into the pool. In addition to her multiple College Swimming and Diving Coaches Association of America All-America honors, she was her conference's Female Swimmer of the Year three times.
Turvey's senior year, she set her sight on the most revered title: a national championship with her teammates.
"Alex was like, 'I think we could win a relay at nationals,'" recalled Turvey's former teammate Val Mello. "She said things with such certainty and confidence that even something that sounded totally delusional we were like, 'Yeah, that could happen.' And the craziest part was, it would happen. She was a master of goal setting and creating her own reality."
Turvey said she and her teammates talked about winning a title almost every day for a year. They manifested their dream in a big way, winning national championship titles in both the 200- and 400-yard freestyle relays. Their national championships marked Pomona-Pitzer's first national titles since 1984.
"All year thinking that we could accomplish something that hadn't been done in over 40 years was at times sort of hard to wrap our minds around," Turvey said. "Having that close-knit team together, we really saw that we could set ambitious goals and really believe in ourselves and believe in each other, and we could achieve what we didn't think was actually possible at the start of the year."
Turvey graduated summa cum laude from Pomona and earned national awards, including the Goldwater Scholarship, NCAA Elite 90 award, College Sports Communicators Academic All-America Team Member of the Year in her sport, Beckman Scholars Program award and an NCAA Walter Byers Graduate Scholarship.
When she began applying to graduate schools, she realized she didn't want to choose between her love of both medicine and research.
"I think, actually thanks to swimming, I realized that I didn't have to make that choice. I could combine the two just as I've been combining swimming and academics my entire life. That really gave me the courage to apply last year for both M.D. and Ph.D. programs," she said.
In July, she began an eight-year graduate program at Harvard Medical School and MIT that combines two challenging graduate degrees: a medical degree and a Doctor of Philosophy. She plans to become a physician scientist. In her first year of her degree, she is using her remaining one year of eligibility to complete her swimming and diving career at MIT.
"It's a huge commitment, but I think because of intercollegiate athletics I've learned to not shy away from these huge commitments. So ultimately it worked out, and I'm really thankful that I was able to," she said.
Turvey has said her experiences as a student-athlete have shaped not only her personal life but also her professional career after college.
"Swimming has shaped who I am. It has taught me to take risks and to not shy away from setting ambitious goals," she said. "Athletics teaches you that life does not go as planned. I have learned far more from days when success eluded me than from podium moments. Swimming has taught me to access depths of toughness that I didn't know that I possessed and to truly be there for others."
Turvey also said that her NCAA experience taught her the value of leadership, just like the skills she employed in making the weight room a safe space for her and her teammates to thrive.
"NCAA athletics teaches you the skill of showing up again and again. Sometimes things don't go your way, and you see that success is not linear. But the thing that will get you ultimately to your goals is just showing up each and every day. I think true leaders do a great job of showing up even when things are hard," she said.
She described her collegiate career as "empowering," not only in the pool, but also in her education and personal growth.
"There are so many sports that women are excluded from or maybe not recognized in, but having this space where so much time and energy and attention is given to uplifting and inspiring women in sports is truly unmatched. That's something that I'll carry forward with me for the rest of my career and my life," she said.
Now, as she works to become a physician scientist, Turvey feels equipped with the life lessons she learned from collegiate athletics.
"In the realm of physician scientists, women are still incredibly underrepresented," she said. "So being empowered through these intercollegiate sports to think that I could join this career path, it is something I will always cherish."
