Born in Sydney, Australia, Alex obtained his PhD from UNSW in 2013 under the direction of Steve Colbran studying metal complexes with tethered organohydride groups. In 2014 Alex moved to California for postdoctoral work under Hill Harman at UCR preparing iron N₂ complexes inspired by nitrogenase enzymes. After a period at the University of Pennsylvania with Eric Schelter, Alex joined the lab of Dan Suess at MIT to study the reaction chemistry of iron-sulfur clusters. In 2020 Alex was invited to join the chemistry faculty at Tulane.