My name is Alisa, and I'm a product engineer who loves building products that are delightful to use. I graduated from MIT in June 2019 with a B.S. and M.Eng in Computer Science, with a minor in Design.
Most recently, I was a founding engineer at Genova Labs (later acquired by HeyGen), where I helped build Alisa, a multimodal AI content agent, from early prototype through public Open Beta. Before that, I spent four years at Pinterest shipping 0-to-1 features like Takes and Pinterest TV from prototype to company-wide launch. I especially love working through the full lifecycle of a product: prototyping fast, talking to real users, and shipping things people actually enjoy. Let's connect on LinkedIn!
In summer 2016, I fell in love with pole fitness, and I've been pole dancing for fun ever since. When I'm not coding or pole dancing, you'll find me trying out new workouts, traveling, or spoiling my cats.
I joined Genova Labs as engineer #2 and helped build Alisa, a multimodal AI agent for creative content generation, from early prototype through public Open Beta. Genova Labs and Alisa were later acquired by HeyGen in September 2025.
Alisa by Genova Labs on Instagram · Read the acquisition announcement (HeyGen blog)
I spent four years as a software engineer at Pinterest, where I built Android features across Home Feed, Closeup, and Idea Pin, and shipped two flagship creator features, Takes and Pinterest TV, from prototype to company-wide launch.
Pinterest Newsroom: Introducing Takes · Pinterest Newsroom: Introducing Pinterest TV
Some of my favorite coding and design projects from the early days ❤
Website: replot.io
Source: github.com/replot
Built with: JavaScript, React.js
Replot is an intelligent and responsive web data visualization library built with React.js. This open source project was started in the hope of solving compatibility issues between React.js and D3.js. Replot supports 8 chart types - map, tree map, bar, grouped bar, line, scatter, box plot, and network - and offers a suite of customization options.
I started working on Replot as an undergraduate research project at MIT Media Lab Collaborative Learning Group in 2017. I contributed mostly to the map, bar chart, network chart, common features like tooltips, and the official Replot website. Currently I am maintaining the codebase as a side project.
Source: github.com/alisaono/CourseRoots
Built with: JavaScript, HTML/CSS, Node.js, Firebase, Heroku
CourseRoots is a collaborative lecture note annotation platform for MIT students. Students use their MIT certificates to log in, upload their own or browse other students’ notes, and add annotations by pinning comments to specific locations on the notes. Other features include searching for notes by department, subject number, etc. and bookmarking favorite notes.
I worked on CourseRoots with two teammates during the 2018 Web Programming Competition (6.148) at MIT and won 4th place. I built the frontend main, search, and profile pages with HTML/CSS and JavaScript and the backend API with Node.js.
Source: github.com/alisaono/tabibuddy
Built with: JavaScript, HTML/CSS, Node.js, MongoDB, Azure
Tabibuddy is a social platform where those who love to travel share photos from their trips along with captions and details such as locations, budget, etc. Aspiring travelers can browse and bookmark other users’ photos to get inspiration for their future trips. They can also search for other users with similar interests to find their future trip buddies.
I worked on Tabibuddy with two teammates during the 2017 Web Programming Competition (6.148) at MIT. I wrote most of the frontend code and some of the backend server code. Tabibuddy was my first full-stack project :)
Source: github.com/alisaono/foda
Built with: Java, XML
Foda is an Android app that detects Latin-based words in images and provides their English translations along with the top Google Image search results for these words. We used Google Vision API for words-in-image detections, Google Translate and Google Image APIs for translations and images.
I worked on Foda with three teammates during the 2017 Hack@Brown. I mostly implemented the words-in-image-detections and translations. Foda was my first Android project :)
Source: github.com/alisaono/simlette
Built with: Swift
Simelette is an iOS app for residents to pre-order dining hall omelets and reduce wait time in long lines. I worked on Simelette with two teammates during the 2016 Simmons Hall Hackathon and won 3rd place. We decided to create this app because made-to-order omelets are really popular in Simmons Hall’s dining hall!
Simelette was my first iOS and also my first hackathon project :)
Source: github.com/alisaono/MIT-4032
Built with: JavaScript, HTML/CSS, P5.js, D3.js
I worked on four data visualization projects while taking 4.032 (Data Visualization) in Spring 2018.
First Project - Visualizing Time: I created three different visualizations of time using P5.js.
Second Project - Visualizing Weather: I created three different visualizations of real-time weather information using D3.js.
Third Project - Income and Education: I worked with three teammates to create visualizations exploring the relationships between income and education levels in the U.S. I built the map charts using D3.js.
Fourth Project - Happiness around the World: I worked with two teammates to create an interactive guide through the results of Gallup World Poll’s World Happiness Report. I built the line chart using D3.js and contributed to the overall UI/UX design.
This is one of my favorite projects from the Fall 2018 4.021 (Design Studio: How to Design).
We defined our own set of rules for drawing and created three variations by repeating them. My rule was to draw a triangle so that its vertices touch another triangle’s edges. I experimented with uniformity and color in my second variation and shape and line weight in my third variation.
This is one of my favorite projects from the Fall 2018 4.021 (Design Studio: How to Design).
We iterated over concept sketches, vector drawings, and prototypes to design window screen panels. My goal was to create window screen panels that allow sunlight through and preserve privacy while exploring triangular surface in scale. I cut each triangle out of foam.
Fun Fact: There are approximately 1000 triangles in my final screen!
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Or say hello via
alisaono.coffee[at gmail]