Victoria Cooper

Victoria (Vic) Cooper joined Student Wellness full-time as the Collegiate Recovery Programs Coordinator. A Northeastern Tennessean and longtime Tar Heel fan, Vic returned to UNC-Chapel Hill to complete her undergraduate degree after entering long-term recovery.

In 2019, she received a B.A. in Women’s and Gender Studies with a minor in Mathematical Decisions Sciences. She is currently an M.S.W. candidate online at Virginia Commonwealth University. There, she served as a Research Assistant at the Institute for Research on Behavioral and Emotional Health with their Spit for Science initiative. She is also an active member of their collegiate recovery program, Rams in Recovery. Her professional areas of interest include the following: intersectional approaches to recovery; social justice reform; the elimination of barriers to healthcare and social services; and the destigmatization of substance use, substance use disorders, harm reduction, and recovery. Vic previously worked at the Orange County Rape Crisis Center as an Advocacy Intern and Crisis Response Assistant. This experience has honed the trauma-informed approach she will bring to her new role. In addition, Vic recently appeared on the homepage of the NPR website in an article about being a woman in recovery.

In her free time, she enjoys thrifting, traveling, and exploring new food spots. More recently, she has become an amateur runner, aspiring to keep up with her two pets–a cat named Raja and a dog named Meeko.