Alexa Semon received her bachelor's degree in Biology from Saint Joseph's University and later worked as a research technician in the lab of Iliyan Iliev, PhD, at Weill Cornell Medicine. While in the Iliev lab she became fascinated by the immune system and the delicate balance it strikes with the intestinal microbiota.

In 2019, Semon joined the Immunology Graduate Group at Penn. In her graduate studies, her interests lie in all things mucosal immunology, including early life microbiota-immune crosstalk and development of mucosal vaccines against enteric pathogens