[5] Born in Göttingen, West Germany, she left to the United States of America as a baby when her father took up a role teaching chemical engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign.

[7] For her Master of Science thesis, "The Full or Minimally Decent Life: Empiricization of Sen’s Capabilities Approach in Poverty Measurement", she was awarded the George Webb Medley Graduate Prize by the university.

[5] During her time there she won the Thulin Scholar of Religion and Contemporary Culture award from the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign and was listed in Foreign Policy Magazine "100 global thinkers 2010".

In May 2020, Alkire was awarded the Boris Mints Institute Prize for Research of Strategic Policy Solutions to Global Challenges for her contribution to the understanding of the dynamics and implications of poverty.

In addition, from 2008 to 2019, she was a non-stipendiary minister in the benefice of Cowley St John in the Church of England's Diocese of Oxford; she continues as an associate priest.