[1][6][7][8][9][10][11] Alavi was born in Tehran and was educated at the University of Cambridge where he was awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree[when?]

in Natural Sciences[12] followed by a PhD in 1990[13] for research on the molecular dynamics of thin films and charge-transfer complexes.

His certificate of election reads: Ali Alavi is distinguished for his highly original contributions to the computation of electron correlation effects in atoms and molecules.

His idea of using Monte Carlo sampling of Slater determinants constitutes a breakthrough as it circumvents the Fermion sign problem.

He developed efficient algorithms (FCIQMC) for this, which enables the accurate treatment of larger systems than could be handled by any earlier method.