Ali received his MD from Tehran University of Medical Sciences in Tehran, Iran, where he was involved in research studies in neurogenetics, neuropharmacology, cognitive neuroscience, and neurology. He then pursued his graduate studies in Cognitive and Neural Sciences at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada, where he studied visual attention, visual search, and masking in healthy adults using visual psychophysics, electroencephalography (EEG), and event-related potentials (ERPs).
Ali first joined the BA-CNBS as a Visiting Research Fellow in 2013, while still in graduate school, to gain experience in applications of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). After completing his PhD training, he returned as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the BA-CNBS, where his research has been supported by fellowships from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR).
Ali's long-term interests lie in utilizing techniques in cognitive neuroscience and neurophysiology, including behavioral experiments, EEG/ERP, noninvasive brain stimulation, and functional neuroimaging to improve the understanding, diagnosis, and treatment of neuropsychiatric disorders. At present, he is working on a project that explores the utility of TMS measures of brain plasticity as a novel neurophysiologic endophenotype in adults and children with autism spectrum disorder.