hi there! 👋

Stephanie is the Founder and Executive Director of Expose Antizionism Now.

Originally trained as a computational evolutionary biologist, she worked for over a decade in academic research, bioinformatics, and data science. Driven by her passion for mentorship and education, coupled with an unrelenting urge to speak out in the face of injustice, she’s moving on to new adventures. Join her here!

Positions

Executive Director, Expose Antizionism Now 2026-Present
Data Scientist, Childhood Cancer Data Lab, Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation 2022-2026
Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences, Rowan University 2018–2022
Research Assistant Professor, Temple University 2016–2018

Education

Ph.D. in Integrative Biology, University of Texas at Austin 2016 Advised by Dr. Claus Wilke · computational molecular evolution
B.S. in Biology with Honors, Brown University 2010 Advised by Dr. Daniel Weinreich · CRISPR population genetics

Awards

President's Award for Excellence in Innovative Instructive Delivery 2021 Rowan University
Outstanding Dissertation Award 2016 University of Texas at Austin
Outstanding Teaching Award 2014 University of Texas at Austin

Interviews

CNN / Instagram October 2024

Interview with Dana Bash

jewish advocacy antizionism antisemitism

Gothamist January 2021

Coronavirus Variants Threaten Billion Dollar Stockpile Of Antibody Therapy

covid-19 virus evolution

National Geographic October 2020

Who infected President Trump? This genetics tool could easily pinpoint the source

covid-19 virus evolution

Projects

Sam Kasten Legacy Project

A project reviving the life and legacy of my great-great grandfather Sam Kasten (1869-1953), comedian, actor, singer, and dancer on the early American Yiddish theater stage. Project features pictures, recordings, and article translations.

Visit Project →

Sam Kasten's Memoirs

Direct link to the e-book with my translation of Sam Kasten's memoirs of his life in the theater, originally published in Yiddish as serial articles in The Forverts from Sept 1946 - Feb 1947.

Read the Memoirs →

Azaryah (az-AR-yah)

An AI-powered tool to help you learn about and speak out against antizionis with clarity and confidence. I developed and maintain the application, which is now owned by Expose Antizionism Now.

Visit the app →

Background

My background is in computational evolutionary biology, specifically molecular evolution, protein evolution, and phylogenetic modeling. Since transitioning out of academic in 2022, I have worked in data science and bioinformatics, cloud computing, and bioinformatics science education. I’m into reproducibility and open science. Sometimes I regret not studying tardigrades.

You can download an abbreviated version of my CV below, or follow other links to see all the rest.

Download CV Publication PDFs → Google Scholar → ORCID → GitHub →

Selected Publications

Hawkins, A. G., Shapiro, J. A., Spielman, S. J., et al. (2026). The single‑cell pediatric cancer atlas: Data portal and open‑source tools for single‑cell transcriptomics of pediatric tumors. Cell Genomics (In press).

Shapiro, J. A., Gaonkar, K. S., Spielman, S. J., et al. (2023). OpenPBTA: The open pediatric brain tumor atlas. Cell Genomics, 3(7), 100340.

Echave, J., Spielman, S. J., & Wilke, C. O. (2016). Causes of evolutionary rate variation among protein sites. Nature Reviews Genetics, 17(2), 109–121.

Spielman, S. J., & Wilke, C. O. (2015). The relationship between dN/dS and scaled selection coefficients. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 32(4), 1097–1108.