Future Alumni Leader Award
Carolina Hernandez Ruiz '26
2026 Future Alumni Leader Award: Carolina Hernandez Ruiz
2026, College of Science and Engineering, Neuroscience; 2026, College of Business Administration, Finance
The Future Alumni Leader Award recognizes outstanding CMU juniors or graduating seniors who have demonstrated commitment to forging ongoing connections with the university community for students and alumni through academic achievement and co-curricular involvement.
A tireless campus leader and groundbreaking changemaker, Carolina Hernandez Ruiz, ’26, was already shaping the future of CMU — and the students who would follow her — before she even crossed the commencement stage.
Carolina earned dual bachelor’s degrees in neuroscience and finance — a combination that reflects her ambition, range and willingness to pursue the unconventional. What makes that achievement even more remarkable is where her story started: she arrived in the United States from Spain as a teenager and taught herself English in less than a year. As a first-generation international student, she came to CMU knowing the path ahead would require more from her. What she found was a community that met her halfway and a platform to give back.
That platform became something historic. Carolina became the first international student body president in 104 years of CMU student government, working alongside the university president and Board of Trustees to advocate for students and launch initiatives that will outlast her time on campus. Among her accomplishments: helping institutionalize the scholarship fair, advancing the free menstrual product initiative, and founding the TEDx CMICH registered student organization — now in its third year, with growing alumni participation.
Her academic and competitive record is just as impressive. Carolina was part of the first CMU team ever to win the Association for Corporate Growth (ACG) Cup, a statewide competition — and her team claimed the title twice. She also contributed to CMU’s winning team in the local CFA Research Challenge. As one of only four University Innovation Fellows at CMU, she collaborated with Stanford University to design campuswide events and initiatives presented at a national gathering. She served on the investment committee of a student-run $4.7 million endowment fund, completed a competitive internship on Wall Street and earned consistent Dean’s List recognition. Along the way, she was the marketing lead for MapScratched, a startup she pitched as the first social platform for travelers.
She also spent four years building community in CMU Residence Life, served as an inclusion assistant for more than 240 student-athletes and mentored freshmen as a teaching assistant in the Honors program.
People who worked alongside her describe Carolina the same way: always the first to lead, and she never leaves anyone behind.
Now based in New York and working as an AI product analyst at Royal Bank of Canada, Carolina is already building on the foundation CMU gave her. “CMU gave me opportunities that changed the future,” she said. “I believe in continuing that cycle of opportunity, so future students can feel empowered to succeed and leave their own impact on the university and beyond.”
The Central Michigan University Alumni Association is proud to announce Carolina Hernandez Ruiz as the recipient of the 2026 Future Alumni Leader Award.
