Fernandez began her career in education as a teaching assistant for undergraduate courses at the University of California-San Diego and the University of Texas. After developing a love for teaching, she began at the middle school level teaching ELA, speech, and humanities. She was a founding 6th grade Humanities teacher and team leader at IDEA San Juan in 2009.

After completing Leadership Pathways in 2010, her great interest in educational leadership brought her to IDEA Donna as an Assistant Principal, where she focused on high persistence, attendance rates, and low failure rates. At IDEA Donna, she organized the Intensive Academics tutoring program, served as coordinator for Section 504, focused on discipline management, and worked with school culture for grades 6th-12th. She also supervised Athletic Programming, served as Physical Education content leader, teacher coach, and evaluator. Additionally, Lopez was in the first cohort of IDEA Public Schools Rhodes Fellows for educational leadership training.

She currently lives in San Antonio, Texas and enjoys spending free time with her husband, Darío, and their two dogs.