She currently teaches both standard and Sheltered English Immersion (SEI) chemistry courses at Everett High School in Everett, Massachusetts, the latter being chemistry instruction in an accessible format for students in English as a Second Language (ESL) Levels 1 & 2. In tackling this new teaching challenge, Alexa builds on her experience teaching chemistry and biochemistry at the high school, undergraduate, & graduate levels, including as a Visiting Lecturer at Wellesley. Her limited proficiency in Spanish and current study of Brazilian Portuguese are also helpful.
Alexa’s research experience began with her undergraduate project on drug-resistant tuberculosis with Wellesley Professor Emeritus Michael J. Hearn. This project sparked her passion for infectious diseases work and inspired her to move to Durban, South Africa after graduating to conduct further research on tuberculosis. There, she was a researcher for a year in Dr. Alexander Pym’s lab at the KwaZulu-Natal Research Institute for Tuberculosis & HIV/AIDS (now part of the Africa Health Research Institute), supported by a Whitaker International Program Fellowship. After returning to the USA, she continued biomedical research, not only on tuberculosis but also epigenetics and diagnostics, as a graduate student and staff member at Harvard.
