Alina Payne hija Direttriċi Paul E. Geier ta’ Villa I Tatti, fiċ-Ċentru ta’ Harvard għall-Istudji tar-Rinaxximent Taljan u Professura Alexander P. Misheff għall-Istorja tal-Arti u l-Arkitettura fl-Università ta’ Harvard.

Hija l-awtriċi ta’ The Architectural Treatise in the Italian Renaissance (1999), Rudolf Wittkower (2010), From Ornament to Object. Genealogies of Architectural Modernism(2012), The Telescope and the Compass. Teofilo Gallaccini and the Dialogue between Architecture and Science in the Age of Galileo (2012), u L’architecture parmi les arts: Matérialité, transferts et travail artistique dans l’Italie de la Renaissance (2016).

Editjat diversi volumi ta’ esejs, bl-aktar riċenti jkunu The Companion to Renaissance and Baroque Architecture (2016), Histories of Ornament: From Global to Local (ma’ G. Necipoglu, 2016), Revision, Revival and Return. The Renaissance in the Nineteenth-Century (ma’ L. Bolzoni, 2018), The Land between Two Seas: Art on the Move in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea 1300–1700 (2022), u Robert Klein: Meteor in Art History and Philosophy (ma’ J. Koering u A. Nova, 2024).

Fl-2006 kisbet il-Premju Max Planck u Alexander von Humboldt fl-Umanitajiet (2006-2012). Hija membru tal-Akkademja Amerikana tal-Arti u x-Xjenza kif ukoll tas-Soċjetà ta’ Storiċi tal-Arkitettura.