2026 40 Under 40 Honoree: Alisa Omelchenko (31)
“Pittsburgh has such a strong scientific and medical community, and I think there’s a real opportunity to build more bridges between that work and the broader public.”
PHOTO BY LAURA PETRILLA
Alisa Omelchenko
Graduate Researcher, University of Pittsburgh
Alisa Omelchenko likes “to see the whole puzzle at once.”
In the lab, the University of Pittsburgh graduate researcher uses machine learning to understand the immune system, not as isolated genes and cells, but as an interconnected network. That approach helped her team untangle a long-running scientific question about the role of the IL-12 gene in immune cells crucial to lasting antibody responses. Her research has appeared in Nature Methods and Nature Communications.
Omelchenko’s instinct to connect the pieces extends beyond science. She helped organize Pitt graduate workers and now serves on the bargaining committee negotiating their first union contract. She also mentors undergraduate researchers and women navigating career transitions through Pennsylvania Women Work and has advocated for research funding, public higher education and parental leave.
“I think my job as a scientist isn’t just to do the research, it’s also to communicate why it matters,” she says.
