About

Alexandra is a Sr. Community engagement/Biomedical data scientist at DNAnexus, where she helps communities of scientist access and use large-scale datasets, like UK biobank, on DNAnexus’ cloud computing platform. She prototypes computational workflows to analyze the multi-modal data available in these large biobanks to help facilitate biological insights.

She recieved a doctorate in Genomics and Computational Biology under the advisement of Casey Greene from the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn). Her doctoral research focused on developing machine learning (ML) methods (generative neural networks, VAEs) to leverage large scale transcriptomic compendia to extract patterns and inform biological discoveries. She mainly applied these methods to understand mechanisms of P.aeruginosa infection. She is passionate about about solving challenging and impactful human health problems by building computational/ML tools that leverage big data.

Prior to coming to UPenn, she graduated from Bryn Mawr College with a B.A. in Mathematics and a minor in Computer Science. She earned an M.S. in Applied Mathematics from the University of Washington. Then she worked as a bioinformatics analyst at the J. Craig Venter Institute, where she studied viral genomics (Influenza, Zika, Ebola). When she isn’t working, she spends time creating new recipes, enjoying anime and walking mindfully.