Alexandra Navrotsky was educated at the Bronx High School of Science and the University of Chicago (B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. in physical chemistry). After postdoctoral work in Germany and at Penn State University, she joined the faculty in chemistry at Arizona State University, where she remained till her move to the Department of Geological and Geophysical Sciences at Princeton University in 1985. She chaired that department from 1988 to 1991 and has been active in the Princeton Materials Institute. In 1997, she became an interdisciplinary professor of ceramic, earth and environmental materials chemistry at the University of California, Davis, and was appointed Edward Roessler Chair in Mathematical and Physical Sciences in 2001.