2026 40 Under 40 Honoree: Alexander Sundermann (35)
“Scientists and clinicians need to meet people where they already are online, so that false information doesn’t get there first.”
PHOTO BY LAURA PETRILLA
Alexander Sundermann
Assistant Professor of Epidemiology, University of Pittsburgh, School of Public Health
Before Alexander Sundermann was tracking hospital outbreaks through DNA, he was meeting patients in the back of an ambulance. He became a volunteer EMT as a high school senior, an experience that exposed him early to people whom health systems had failed. “I still carry so many of those patient stories with me today,” he says. “Behind every single data point I look at now is a person with a family and a life that matters.”
Today, the Pitt epidemiologist leads UPMC’s pathogen genomic surveillance program, using genetic sequencing to uncover hospital outbreaks that conventional monitoring can miss. His research has helped stop infections and is aimed at making that surveillance standard practice in hospitals nationwide.
Sundermann has also brought public health to a much bigger audience online, countering misinformation with infectious disease explainers that reach thousands.
