Tessa Alexanian
Technical Lead, Common Mechanism at International Biosecurity and Biosafety Initiative for Science (IBBIS)
Berkeley, California, United States
Summary
👤
Senior🎓
Top SchoolTessa Alexanian is a technical leader blending software engineering with biosafety and biosecurity, currently shaping common mechanisms at IBBIS in Berkeley. With about a decade of experience, she has moved from software roles at Zymergen to policy-oriented positions at Open Philanthropy, iGEM, and the Council on Strategic Risks, focusing on safe, responsible biotechnology development. Her work spans building tools at the intersection of life sciences and engineering, designing incentives and metrics for safe tech, and fostering collaborative, diverse communities for shared progress. A former robot whisperer who built automation in biotech, she remains passionate about turning scientific insight into practical, auditable systems. She holds a BASc from the University of Waterloo and maintains an active ethos of let's do nice things with biology, with community-centric and safety-driven approaches. Based in Berkeley, she continues to contribute at the edge of biosecurity, policy, and engineering.
11 years of coding experience
5 years of employment as a software developer
Bachelor of Applied Science (BASc), Bachelor of Applied Science (BASc) at University of Waterloo
Spanish, English
Stackoverflow
2,293reputation
504kreached
28answers
4questions
tcp
top-5%
sockets
top-5%
sql-server
top-5%
Github Skills (78)
rights9
sockets9
tcp9
bioinformatics9
sql-server9
maze9
populate8
exposure8
exposure-notification8
form-fields8
lgpl8
conda8
opc8
heist8
python38
Programming languages (10)
Github contributions (5)
catalystbiosummit/catalystbiosummit.github.io
Jun 2019 - Jun 2021
Minimalist website for the Catalyst Collaborative Biosecurity Summit
Contributions:26 PRs, 78 pushes, 28 branches in 2 years
biosecurityminimalistsummitcollaborativecatalyst
alexanian/airtable-last-updated-hack
Apr 2018 - Sep 2020
Scripts using the Airtable API to allow a "last updated" field
Contributions:13 commits, 8 PRs, 22 pushes in 2 years 6 months
apiairtable-apiairtableupdatedfield
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