Nappi obtained the Diploma della Scuola di Perfezionamento in physics from the University of Naples in 1976.

[3] Chiara Nappi's early work focused on rigorous statistical mechanics.

Her work with R. Figari and R. Hoegh-Krohn resulted in one of the first proposals of a thermal interpretation of quantum field theory in de Sitter space.

[4] In the 1980s, with G. Adkins and E. Witten, she investigated the static properties of baryons in the Skyrme model,[5] and with A. Abouelsaood, C. G. Callan, and S. A. Yost, she worked on the behavior of open strings in background electromagnetic fields.

[9] Nappi is married to Edward Witten, a mathematical physicist and professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey.