Alix’s work expands across various mediums of communication, centering on a search for connecting idealism to material realities while illuminating the taken-for-granted in seemingly ordinary life. She occupies the working identities of sociologist & designer.

For over a decade, her research and practice have focused on the social and emotional connection to clothing, originating in autoethnography and advancing through the founding of a studio and the forthcoming publication of research based on qualitative, in-depth interview data. Her study, Clothing The Self, draws audiences of climate advocacy, body positivity, and theorists of identity and selfhood. She argues that a sustainable consumption movement should address the social and emotional needs of people to deepen awareness of fashion’s influence on consumption.

Alix has also researched the social and emotional relationship to work and unemployment; clothing and consumption; childbearing practices; health and stigma; factors associated with delayed patient appraisal of colorectal cancer symptoms; and sexualities. She wrote her dissertation on mismatched work among college-educated professionals, while also researching how long-term unemployment spells can be alleviated. Alix is the cofounder of an MIT-based nonprofit and emotional support job search app, and her work has influenced public policy under President Barack Obama.

With medical sociologist Peter Conrad, she has co-authored papers on health, stigma, and the influence of the Internet in health lived experiences, and is the author of Choosing Surgical Birth: Personal Choice and Medical Jurisdiction. During her graduate education, Alix was a research assistant for Dr. Laura Siminoff on an NIH-funded cancer study that revealed the influence of skin color and gender on the appraisal and subsequent diagnosis of patients presenting the symptoms of colorectal cancer.

As a designer and artisan, she has created objects that honor natural materials and intuitive processes. She cofounded the studio, da.to.da (later, purveyours), with Harvard-trained architect, Matt Fiely, bringing to market objects made with reverence for nature and sympathy for the lived experience of late modernity. Focused on empathic, human-centered design, Alix has imbued the importance of resonance not just within residential living, but also spiritual, wellness, and health centers.

She teaches in the Sociology Department at The University of San Francisco and runs the qualitative clothing company, Herderin. She is a producer and member of Fibershed, and has worked to develop the governance structure for the Northern California members.

Alix presents her work at the American Sociological Association, West Coast Craft, SF Design Week, SF Climate Week, and Fibershed’s annual design challenges and retreats. She is an active member of the Marin Chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America.

In response to "What will you do with a PhD in Sociology?” she is making available sorbet and sorbet cakes in 2026 under the name Sïana’s Sorbet.