diff --git a/.github/workflows/workflow.yml b/.github/workflows/workflow.yml
index c211b5234c..44d799e4ae 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/workflow.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/workflow.yml
@@ -155,7 +155,7 @@ jobs:
     - name: Cache Data
       run: |
         ASPIREDIR=${{ env.WORK_DIR }} python -c \
-        "import aspire; print(aspire.config['common']['cache_dir']); aspire.downloader.emdb_2660()"
+        "import aspire; print(aspire.config['common']['cache_dir']); import aspire.downloader; aspire.downloader.emdb_2660()"
     - name: Cleanup
       run: rm -rf ${{ env.WORK_DIR }}
 
diff --git a/src/aspire/__init__.py b/src/aspire/__init__.py
index fbb3ac2d2a..8e412fbab8 100644
--- a/src/aspire/__init__.py
+++ b/src/aspire/__init__.py
@@ -69,8 +69,18 @@
 
     sys.excepthook = handle_exception
 
+# Collect set of all module names in package
+_modules = set(item[1] for item in pkgutil.iter_modules(aspire.__path__))
 
+# Automatically add modules
 __all__ = []
-for _, modname, _ in pkgutil.iter_modules(aspire.__path__):
+for modname in _modules:
     __all__.append(modname)  # Add module to __all_
-    importlib.import_module(f"aspire.{modname}")  # Import the module
+
+
+# Dynamically load and return attributes
+def __getattr__(attr):
+    if attr in _modules:
+        return importlib.import_module(f"aspire.{attr}")
+    else:
+        raise AttributeError(f"module `{__name__}` has no attribute `{attr}`.")
diff --git a/src/aspire/utils/bot_align.py b/src/aspire/utils/bot_align.py
index 68f6f9047c..fc8fbe4fdc 100644
--- a/src/aspire/utils/bot_align.py
+++ b/src/aspire/utils/bot_align.py
@@ -11,7 +11,6 @@
 from numpy.linalg import norm
 from scipy.optimize import minimize
 
-from aspire.operators import wemd_embed
 from aspire.utils.rotation import Rotation
 
 # Store parameters specific to each loss_type.
@@ -64,6 +63,9 @@ def align_BO(
         Default `None` infers dtype from `vol_ref`.
     :return: Rotation matrix R_init (without refinement) or (R_init, R_est) (with refinement).
     """
+    # Avoid utils/operators/utils circular import
+    from aspire.operators import wemd_embed
+
     # Infer dtype
     dtype = np.dtype(dtype or vol_ref.dtype)