Alexis was a W.M. Keck Postdoctoral Fellow in the Ben-Shahar lab. Alexis attended the University of Pennsylvania for her undergraduate and masters degrees, where she worked in the Department of Neurology with Dr. Edward Cooper. Alexis then went on to receive her PhD in Neurobiology and Behavior from Columbia University in 2014, mentored by Dr. René Hen. In the Ben-Shahar lab, Alexis studied mechanisms through which ion channels mediate the neuronal stress response.