Alex Pszenny completed a B. S. and M.S. in Chemistry at Boston College in 1974 and 1978, respectively, and a Ph.D. degree in Oceanography at the University of Rhode Island in 1987. He was on the research staff at the University of Virginia in 1985 and 1986. In 1987 he joined NOAA's Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory in Miami, FL as a Research Oceanographer then, in 1993, moved to MIT to serve as Executive Officer of the International Global Atmospheric Chemistry (IGAC) core project of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP). In 2001 he was appointed to his current dual position as Research Associate Professor in the Climate Change Research Center within the University of New Hampshire's Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space and as Chief Scientist for the Mount Washington Observatory.

Multiphase chemistry of the marine atmosphere has been Pszenny's research focus and has involved measurements of ammonia and soluble acid gases and of the ionic and trace element composition of atmospheric aerosols and precipitation. Of particular and continuing interest to him is the role of halogens in tropospheric photochemistry. Pszenny has also been involved in field studies of nuclear bomb debris deposition to vegetation, trace metal availability in continental shelf sediments and air-sea exchange of hydrocarbon gases.