For the third time this year, the Miss USA pageant has named its winner. This time, it’s Alma Cooper, an Afro-Latina from Michigan.

“As the daughter of a migrant worker, a proud Afro-Latina woman, and an officer of the United States Army, I am living the American dream,” she said at the finale on August 4. “If there’s anything that my life and my mother have taught me, it’s that your circumstances never define your destiny: You can make success accessible through demanding excellence.”

A US Army Officer, Cooper is the third person holding the title in 2024. Shockingly, 2023’s winners, Noelia Voigt and UmaSofia Srivastava resigned. Cooper was crowned by Savannah Gankiewicz of Hawaii, who inherited the title after Voigt stepped down.

The new Miss USA is a West Point graduate and intelligence officer

While beauty pageants have often been associated with looks over brains, things are changing. For Cooper, her education comes first as the new Miss USA’s resume has us all impressed. According to “Task and Purpose,” Cooper is a West Point graduate and intelligence officer, graduating in 2023. She is currently pursuing her master’s degree in statistics at Stanford University.

While at the US Military Academy at West Point, the Michigan native got her bachelor’s in mathematics. She comes from a military family, with her father joining the Army and becoming an armor officer. Her mother even enrolled her at West Point leadership experience one summer.

 “To be a woman of color in that situation was challenging,” Cooper states in her Stanford video. “It was incredibly rewarding to find moments to elevate the voices of other minority high-potential cadets.”

Cooper started competing in pageants at 14 years old

While interested in her Army career, Cooper also shared another love with her mother: pageants. At 14, she first learned of them from her mother, who competed in the Miss America contest previously. She was named Miss Michigan that year.

“The greatest things in life lie on the other side of fear,” she said in the video. “When you demand excellence of yourself, when you look for opportunities to be out front, to learn and grow and to better yourself. Even in the face of fear, there are so many beautiful things that lie behind that door.”

Cooper will compete in the next Miss Universe.