“I honestly don’t know how interesting it would be to write about what I do,” said Jamie Alexander, a senior majoring in biological sciences.

Alexander’s modesty is disarming – she has made varied and intense research a vital part of her undergraduate years at USC.

As a freshman, she participated in the Engineering Merit Research Program and worked in USC’s Combustion Laboratory. Last year, she received a prestigious Women in Science and Engineering (WiSE) grant, which she used for research in USC’s biomechanics lab. She also has received the Okin Award, one of three undergraduate honors bestowed by the biology department each spring, and the Trojan League of South Bay Wrigley Institute Scholarship.

Alexander has devoted most of her research efforts to working in the Edmands Lab, a USC facility for studying marine populations and conservation genetics. When asked to describe what she does there, her answer is highly technical: “My work focuses on the effects of interpopulation hybridization in the intertidal copepod Tigriopus californicus.”

For those of us unschooled in marine biology, copepods are tiny organisms – the most common multicellular creatures in the world’s oceans. Alexander’s job is to study the ones existing in splash zones along the California coast. Populations of copepods from the different zones “have more mitochondrial diversity than we do with chimps, and yet they still interbreed,” she said.

Alexander is examining how the genetic composition of the copepods changes when two different populations are allowed to interbreed. Typically, the first-generation hybrids take on the best traits from both gene pools, she said. The second generation of copepods “crashes,” displaying less impressive traits – a phenomenon known as outbreeding depression. If the lab can discover how to overcome outbreeding depression, it could be good news for conservationists everywhere. Many wild species, not just copepods, could be interbred more effectively to prevent their extinction.

Meanwhile, Alexander has had her share of research setbacks. The freezer where the copepods were stored was mistakenly unplugged last year, destroying almost seven years of investment and effort. “It was literally the most career-shattering thing I’ve witnessed firsthand,” she said. The lab has since regrouped and continues to carry on its work.

It is difficult, Alexander said, to grasp the entire project when she is working on a small piece of the larger puzzle. “The whole project is neat,” she added. “Unfortunately, it just happens in tiny chunks. Which I guess is life.”


Do you know of someone who takes learning, especially undergraduate research, beyond classroom walls? If so, please e-mail Professor Mark Kann at mkann@usc.edu to suggest a feature for this column.