Alexandra Towers is a Clinical Research Assistant with Clinical Futures and PolicyLab at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. She works with Dr. Brian Jenssen and Dr. Alexander Fiks on multiple projects that use electronic health record data to improve pediatric health outcomes, with a particular emphasis on tobacco cessation efforts to reduce children’s exposure to secondhand smoke. She also contributes to The Possibilities Project, which develops and tests innovative approaches to challenges in pediatric primary care.

Alexandra received her B.A. in Biology from Claremont McKenna College, where her undergraduate research examined relationships between anatomical features and ecological function across species. She extended this work in her senior thesis by using CT imaging to study eye and orbital structures across a range of turtle species. Her research showed how these features can provide insight into the ecology and behavior of extinct vertebrates when fossil evidence is limited or incomplete. That experience—drawing meaningful conclusions from indirect data—continues to shape how she approaches her work using electronic health record data to answer complex questions in pediatric care.