Alex Norquist received a B.A. in chemistry from Gustavus Adolphus College, in St. Peter MN, in 1996 and a M.S. and Ph.D. from Northwestern University in 1997 and 2000. His doctoral work was conducted under the guidance of Kenneth R. Poeppelmeier, and was focused upon controlling the crystallization of early transition metal oxide fluoride anions. From 2001 to 2003 he was a post doctoral research assistant in the lab of Dermot O'Hare, in the Inorganic Chemistry Laboratory, University of Oxford where his research was divided into two areas. The first involved monitoring crystallization and structural transformations in hydrothermal reactions using synchrotron radiation, at the SRS in Daresbury Laboratory, while the second was an investigation of the hydrothermal chemistry of uranium. He joined Haverford College in the Fall 2003 semester.
His research interests at Haverford involve studying the formation of organically templated inorganic materials. His research is currently funded by the National Science Foundation, with past support from the Camille & Henry Dreyfus Foundation, the American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund and Research Corporation.