Alejandra Velazquez-Villegas is an undergraduate in Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics student at the University of California, Los Angeles. There Alejandra is an undergrad at the lab of Professor Leonid Kruglyak at the University of California (UCLA), where she assists postdoctoral fellow and faculty mentor, Chantle Swichkow in studying the genetic structure of yeast-bacteria interactions in fermented environments. This is done by exploring genetic variation in yeast and interspecies mutualism with lactic acid bacteria, in the hopes of better understanding the diverse communities of microorganisms that are established. This has allowed her to participate in the investigation of the evolution of yeast and bacteria communities in sourdough starters and understand how communities from the native yeast and bacteria have developed from different flours.