Alexandra Boghosian is a Science Associate at Schmidt Sciences working to help develop new scientific programs, with a specific focus on global carbon, water, and climate.

As a Postdoctoral Research Scientist at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University, she led a NASA-funded project to understand the future of ice shelves in Greenland and Antarctica, and also directed a project to develop Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality tools that enable scientific discovery through the holistic interpretation of geophysical data. As a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow she discovered the first “ice-shelf estuary,” a backward flowing river on floating ice, in Greenland. Her work has also touched on data science and geophysical modeling, including developing new methods for paleoclimate data analysis, modeling the ocean floor of Greenland’s fjords, and exploring drivers of outlet glacier behavior.

Alexandra has conducted fieldwork in both Greenland and Antarctica, and her Antarctic work was included in the New York Times’ VR collection, The Antarctica Series. Her research on ice-shelf rivers has been featured in Scientific American and Discover Magazine. Alexandra has collaborated with architects and artists both in New York City and internationally to explore the cultural context and impacts of scientific research. She was a 2020 Ocean Fellow at TBA21-Academy Ocean Space, and a 2021 recipient of the Lotos Foundation Prize in the Arts and Sciences.

Alexandra received a BS in Mathematics from the University of Chicago and a PhD from Columbia University in Earth and Environmental Science.