Ali is a research associate at the Knowledge Media Institute, The Open University, and a member of the Social Data Science group. He has obtained a Ph.D. funded by the President's Doctoral Scholar Award in Computer Science from the University of Manchester.

His research interests are focused on natural language processing and text mining. His current research project CIMPLE focuses on the development of XAI models for detecting and assessing structural, emotional, and coverage manipulation of content. Ali is investigating the Use of Machine learning, NLP, linguistic models, and semantic technologies to detect and track the manipulation of information across multiple versions of a given story or event.