Dr. Alejandro (Alex) Chibly is a 2016 graduate of the Cancer Biology Graduate Interdisciplinary doctoral program and the Graduate College’s inaugural recipient of Alumnus of the Year. Chibly was introduced to the University of Arizona in 2011 as an undergraduate student participating in the Latin American summer research program and continued as a CONACYT scholar during his doctoral training. Following the completion of his PhD, Chibly completed post-doctoral training at the National Institutes of Health’s intramural research program and in 2021 transitioned to work for Genentech in San Francisco, Calif.
In this role, Chibly has been instrumental in the integration of large datasets and machine learning to improve clinical outcomes for patients with therapy-resistant breast cancer. Dr. Chibly was chosen for the Alumnus of the Year recognition based on his unwavering commitment to mentoring and fostering the professional growth of the next generation of scientists. In addition, as co-chair of gPRIDE at Genentech, Alex has helped create meaningful spaces centered on connection, learning, and mutual support thereby enhancing inclusion throughout the organization.
While Chibly is honored and grateful to be the inaugural Graduate College Alumnus of the Year, “it's also surreal,” he said. “I'm not generally one to take the spotlight; generally, I prefer working behind the scenes and enjoying my wins quietly, but when I read the email with the news, it made me feel super proud of being a Wildcat, and it gave me some extra motivation to keep going.”
Chibly began to gather essential components for the recipe of his adult life in the summer of 2011. This is when Chibly joined Kirsten Limesand’s lab as an intern at the University of Arizona. “She may never fully know how profoundly she changed my life - and my family’s - but when she accepted me that summer, she set me on a path I hadn’t imagined was even possible,” Chibly said of Dr. Limesand, who, at the time, was an Associate Professor in the Department of Nutritional Sciences. “She created opportunities that simply didn’t exist for me or my family.” Chibly noted that the internship at the U of A sparked a more defined interest in cancer research, which is the path he chose and where he finds meaning and satisfaction to this day.
Among the components of the kind of professional life that Chibly wanted to pursue was setting foot on a path that would lead to a career versus a job. This is what would enable Chibly to take care of his family – a responsibility he was eager to fulfill. The other component was encountering mentors like Dr. Limesand and others whom he wanted to emulate. “I had people … who genuinely cared for me and helped me find and hone my own skills and carve my own path,” he said.
Of his current position at Genentech, he said, “I'm happy where I am at the moment, at the intersection of AI and translational research, because I'm working on projects that are clinically impactful, surrounded by incredible colleagues,” he said. “In a nutshell, I use all the available molecular and genetic data from patients' tumors to determine what specific traits make them more or less susceptible to a given treatment, or to develop new treatments.”
Chibly, whose motto is “Joy is non-negotiable, everything else is,” will be celebrated on February 13, 2026, at various events at the University of Arizona along with others who were chosen by their respective colleges for the AOY honor.