In 1899 she went camping in Oregon and then went with her father to Bermuda.[1] Alexander first became fascinated with paleontology in 1900 while attending a lecture by Professor John C. Merriam at the University of California, Berkeley. She offered to underwrite the entire cost of his upcoming expeditions. She took part in Merriam's 1901 expedition to Fossil Lake in Oregon, and his 1902 and 1903 expeditions to Mount Shasta in northern California.