Alex Nikolsko-Rzhevskyy earned his doctorate in Economics from the University of Houston and a masters degree in Physics from Odessa National University in Ukraine. Prior to joining Lehigh's faculty, Nikolsko-Rzhevskyy served as an assistant professor at the University of Memphis, where he taught graduate Macroeconomics and Econometrics, and conducted research on monetary policy analysis.

Nikolsko-Rzhevskyy's papers have been published in the Journal of Monetary Economics, Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Macroeconomic Dynamics, and others. He has been the recipient of several research grants and his research has been referred to at the U.S. Congress.