Alex Broussard

Alex Broussard serves as an Additional Instructor at Durham Technical Community College within the SEA-PHAGES (Science Education Alliance-Phage Hunters Advancing Genomics and Evolutionary Science) program, a national initiative integrating undergraduate research into biology curricula through bacteriophage discovery and genomic analysis.

Research interests center on experimental and computational approaches in microbial systems, with emphasis on:

• Phage isolation and characterization
• Bacterial host-pathogen interactions
• Genomic annotation workflows
• Undergraduate research pedagogy
• Evolutionary microbiology
• Computational biology education

Co-instructing BIO111 sections with Primary Instructor Marie Fogarty, Broussard guides freshman students through hands-on phage discovery using Gordonia rubripertincta as host organism. Each 14-15 student cohort engages in 6-7 weekly hours of laboratory and bioinformatics work across 2-3 sessions, conducting wet-lab experiments and genomic analyses within the SEA-PHAGES framework.

As part of this HHMI-funded network connecting over 100 institutions, Broussard contributes to collaborative science education efforts while implementing standardized phage genomics protocols that advance both pedagogical innovation and microbial evolutionary research.