Dr. Ali's research focuses on integrative approaches to achieving planetary sustainability through technical and social mechanisms. In particular, he has studied the causes and consequences of multiscale environmental conflicts between industry, communities and government and how ecological factors can promote peace. He has previously served on the faculty of Brown University’s Watson Institute for International Studies and on the visiting faculty for the United Nations University for Peace (Costa Rica).^[14] Much of his empirical research has focused on environmental conflicts in the mineral sector. In September 2007, he was chosen as one of eight "revolutionary minds" by Seed magazine.^[15]

Professor Ali was elected to the United Nations International Resource Panel in 2017 and to the Science Panel of the Global Environment Facility in 2018, and is also a member of the World Commission on Protected areas and the IUCN Taskforce on Transboundary Conservation.^[16] He has also been involved in promoting environmental education in madrasahs and using techniques from environmental planning to study the rise of these institutions in his ethnic homeland of Pakistan, under a grant from the United States Institute of Peace.^[17] In much of his research efforts, Dr. Ali involves a multi-media component, often involving his students in making video documentaries of their empirical work. From 2005 to 2008, he received two grants from the Tiffany & Co. Foundation to investigate the environmental and social impact of gemstone and gold mining.^[18] He also completed a report on oil and gas pipelines as a source of cooperation that was researched while based at the Brookings Institution research center in Doha, Qatar in 2009.^[19] His report on "Ecological Cooperation in South Asia" was launched in Washington at an event hosted by Peter Bergen in January 2013.^[20] Subsequently, he has also contributed to science diplomacy anthologies pertaining to South Asia for the Stimson Center and The Middle East Institute.

Professor Ali's research appointments include, a Baker Foundation Research Fellowship at Harvard Business School, a Bellagio Residency with the Rockefeller Foundation and a parliamentary internship at the British House of Commons. He has taught courses on environmental planning, conflict resolution, industrial ecology, research methods and technical writing and has been is actively involved in online learning platforms such as EdX.

Prior to embarking on an academic career, Dr. Ali worked as an environmental health and safety professional at General Electric. He also served as a consultant for the Environmental Protection Agency, Fish and Wildlife Service, and Health Canada. Yet other of his projects included a mining impact prospectus for the Crow Nation and research assistance to Cultural Survival.^[21]

He has also served as an editor for the University of Chicago Press book series on environmental science, law and policy.^[22] and is a Senior Fellow of the Foreign Policy Research Institute.^[23] During the COVID pandemic, he collaborated with film-maker Alex Tyson to produce and screen-write a short film on the hidden materials behind the infrastructure needed to work from home titled "Material Zoom" which was profiled by the United Nations Environment Programme.^[24]

Professor Ali earned a doctorate in environmental planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where his doctoral committee was chaired by Lawrence Susskind. He received a master's degree (M.E.S.) in environmental law and policy from Yale University, (thesis advisor Daniel C. Esty), and a bachelor's degree in chemistry from Tufts University. He did his secondary schooling at Aitchison College Lahore, Pakistan with primary schooling at the Friends Academy and the Job. S. Gidley School in North Dartmouth, Massachusetts.^[25]

Saleem Ali was born to Pakistani immigrant parents, who came to America from Lahore, Pakistan in 1971. His father Dr. Shaukat Ali (1923-2003) was a Professor of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts (Dartmouth Campus) and his mother, Dr. Parveen Shaukat Ali (born 1933), served as Vice Principal of Forman Christian College in Lahore, Pakistan. He has two sisters, Irfana Qadir (married to Basharat Qadir, the son of the former foreign minister of Pakistan, Manzur Qadir), and the Canadian writer and activist Farzana Hassan. In public interviews he has noted that his parents had very different backgrounds and personalities.^[26] His mother came from an upper-middle-income family with Afghan heritage (Syeds from Herat) while his father was a first-generation school-goer from an impoverished Punjabi family in Lahore. Thanks to a scholarship from the Ford Foundation his father was able to get higher studies at The University of Southern California while his mother attended Stanford University.^[27] In the dedication of his first book he notes: "to my mother who taught me the virtue of principled confrontation and to my father from whom I learned the value of pragmatic conciliation."^[28]. Saleem Ali's wife Maria (Kashmiri) a psychologist by training and the daughter of the former headmaster of Aitchison College Saleem Kashmiri and the sister of Pakistani-American artist Amr Kashmiri. The couple have two sons Dr. Shahmir Ali, a public health professional,^[29] and Shahroze Ali, a hydrologist for the State of Delaware.

• Mining, the environment, and indigenous development conflicts, Saleem H. Ali, University of Arizona Press, 2003, ISBN 978-0-8165-2312-2
• Peace Parks: Conservation and Conflict Resolution, Saleem H. Ali ed. MIT Press, 2007, ISBN 978-0-262-51198-8
• Earth Matters: Indigenous People, The Extractive Industries and Corporate Social Responsibility, Ciaran O’Faircheallaigh and Saleem Ali eds. Greenleaf Publications, 2008, ISBN 978-1-906093-16-7
• Islam and Education: Conflict and Conformity in Pakistan's Madrassahs, Saleem H. Ali, Oxford University Press, 2009, ISBN 978-0-19-547672-9
• Treasures of the Earth: Need, Greed and a Sustainable Future, Saleem H. Ali, Yale University Press, 2009, ISBN 978-0-300-14161-0
• Environmental Diplomacy: Negotiating More Effective Global Agreements, Lawrence Susskind and Saleem H. Ali, Oxford University Press, 2014, ISBN 978-0-199-39797-6
• Diplomacy on Ice: Energy and the Environment in the Arctic and Antarctic Rebecca Pincus and Saleem H. Ali eds., Yale University Press, 2015, ISBN 978-0-300-20516-9
• Africa's Mineral Fortune Saleem H. Ali, Kathryn Sturman and Nina Collins eds., Routledge, 2018 ISBN 9781138606920
• Earthly Order: How Natural Laws Define Human Life Saleem H. Ali, Oxford University Press, 2022 ISBN 9780197640272
• Soil to Foil: Aluminum and the Quest for Industrial Sustainability Saleem H. Ali, Columbia University Press, 2023 ISBN 9780231555562
• Google Scholar Citations of Peer-reviewed articles by Saleem H. Ali

• University of Delaware Profile of Saleem H. Ali
• Saleem H. Ali, Profile at Columbia University
• National Geographic Profile of Saleem H. Ali
• World Economic Forum profile of Saleem H. Ali
• Forbes Profile of Saleem H. Ali
• Saleem Ali's web site at UVM with links to online articles
• University of Queensland Profile
• Sustainable Pearls Project Web Site
• Tropical Gold: Reversal of Fortune in Fiji -- research site and documentary
• Gems and the Environment
• Madrassa Research in Pakistan
• Environmental Conflict Resolution Research Library