Winterlin, O’Brien elected next USG president, vice president

Mitch Winterlin and Carly O’Brien won with 51 percent of the vote.

Matt Sindt

Candidates Carly O’Brien and Mitch Winterlin speak during a University of Iowa Undergraduate Student Government debate in the Iowa Theater in the Iowa Memorial Union on March 26, 2023.

Archie Wagner, News Reporter
March 31, 2023

Mitch Winterlin and Carly O’Brien will serve as the University of Iowa Undergraduate Student Government’s next president and vice president during the 2023-24 academic year. 

The pair won 51 percent of the vote. They ran against Vera Barkosky who served as the 2022-23 vice president and Robert Jepsen who served as the 2022-23 director of finance. 

Winterlin and O’Brien are both third-year students at UI with previous participation in the undergraduate student government. Winterlin served as the director of student services and O’Brien served as the director of operations in the 2022-23 UI Undergraduate Student Government Administration. 

The undergraduate student participation in this year’s election was higher than previous years with 1570 voters.The 2021 election had 475 students vote, and the 2022 election had 699 students vote.

The number of voters in addition to the winners of the 2023 election were announced by UI undergraduate student government election commissioners Alivia Rosendahl and Boris Miller. 

These results were announced at a meeting Friday afternoon in the Iowa Memorial Union after three days of voting. Voting began for undergraduates on March 27 and ended on March 29. 

Both senators-at-large and constituency senators were elected and announced at the meeting. Constituency senators sit on the Justice & Equity committee and serve with the purpose of advocating for diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives to represent the needs of the student group they represent.

31 senators-at-large were elected, with 7 being new and 24 being returning senators. The senators-at-large elected in the election included: 

  • Arsha Vaddadi
  • Lucas Manley
  • Emmerson Speer
  • Skylar Radz
  • Matthew Lancaster
  • Mae Barron
  • Addison Eckard
  • Katie Meredith
  • Marco Morel 
  • Leah Stringer 
  • Josh Studer 
  • Quinn Eldridge 
  • Thomas Knudsen 
  • Amira Qidwai 
  • Amisha Mohanty 
  • Ben Cooper 
  • Emma Seward 
  • Ahmed Baig 
  • Emma Cutsforth 
  • Gabriella Michalski 
  • Harrid Siraj
  • Jake Wicks
  • Jack Carrell
  • Marta Leira
  • Madison Ross
  • Jaden Bartlett
  • Ioanna-Aliki Kassioti
  • Maycen Zimmerman
  • Advika Shah 
  • Mitchell Militello
  • Zaden Issah

Constituency senators were also elected, representing a multitude of student groups. Senators elected include: 

  • Amiritha Kumar as the Asian Pacific Islander Desi American constituency senator
  • Maria Eduarda Rodrigues Leite as the International Student constituency senator 
  • Willie Zheng as the First Generation constituency senator
  • Estella Ruhrer Johnson as the LGBTQIA+ constituency senator
  • Natalie Kehrli as the Disability constituency senator 
  • Cielo Herrera as the Latine constituency senator.