Photo Courtesy: University of Texas at Arlington

A Texas Wesleyan alumna is in the middle of the fight against COVID-19 misinformation and will be getting some help thanks to a prestigious honor. 

Ana Aleksandric ’20, a TXWES computer science graduate and current doctoral student and researcher at the University of Texas at Arlington, is just one of two recipients of the Technology Informatics Guiding Education Reform (TIGER) Scholars Informatics Internship. The one-year position will help enhance her knowledge of health informatics and related skills.  

“Health informatics is becoming even more important now because of the pandemic,” Aleksandric said in UTA’s announcement of the achievement. “Collecting data only from hospitals is not enough to understand what is happening at the community level.” 

In her research, Aleksandric has been examining where COVID-19 vaccination misinformation and disinformation are likely to occur. As a TIGER intern, she hopes to build on that research by providing information that will increase COVID-19 vaccination rates in the U.S. and help people find accurate health-related resources.  

“When we put this data together, it allows public health advocates to gain the knowledge needed to intervene against misinformation and assist the public in making fully informed health care decisions,” Aleksandric said. 

“As her former computer science professor at Texas Wesleyan, I am so proud of Ana’s achievements at UTA as a doctoral student. Ana was one of the best students in our computer science program. She always exceeded expectations with her quality work,” said Yukong Zhang, professor of computer science. 

During her time at TXWES, Ana also competed on the table tennis team, earning international recognition for her play.