Alexis Deifilia Serrano

Alexis Serrano is an educational instructor at Space Center Houston. She is currently in the last year of her undergraduate program at the University of Houston, Clear Lake, where she is majoring in molecular biology and minoring in environmental science. Her passion lies in restoring ecosystems and protecting wildlife from pollution and global warming, with a focus on molecular solutions for bioremediation. Throughout her college career, Alexis has conducted research under Dr. Lamonte, sampling bodies of water in watersheds around the Galveston and Houston area to perform metagenomic analysis of bacterial communities and observe changes due to extreme seasonal variance. She presented her findings at an ASM conference, became a research assistant, and gained experience making custom media for bacterial cultivation. Her project received funding from the EPA, NASA, and NSF, and she was the first to use a whole genome sequencer provided by NASA, generating over a billion reads of data. Alexis is now preparing to research how Pseudomonas putida breaks down benzene-derived compounds from oil spills. At Space Center Houston, she works in educational programs and has been asked to manage and supervise a new molecular biology laboratory.