His expertise falls within computational plant sciences, where he addresses questions in the area of plant growth and shape formation under field conditions in formal and applied settings. Before joining the University of Georgia, Alexander was a postdoctoral researcher at the Georgia Institute of Technology in the Schools of Biology and Interactive Computing, where he began to work on root shapes. He received his PhD from the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, and earned his M.Sc. and B.Sc. at the Brandenburg University of Technology in Cottbus, Germany.