Alexis originally trained in music performance, earning her BMus from Vancouver Island University in British Columbia, Canada. After a variety of jobs, including teaching guitar and handling queries at the public library, she became involved as a volunteer and later research assistant at the Music and Neuroscience Lab at Western University, Ontario. This experience led her to Cambridge University's Centre for Music and Science, where she studied for her MPhil funded by the Cambridge Trust Canada Scholarship. Alexis then went to London for her PhD in cognitive neuroscience at University College London fully supported by the GRS-ORS scholarships (now UCL Research Excellence Scholarship). She is currently based at the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, where she is a member of the Cambridge Hearing Group and the Hearing and Language Group.