Dr Usman Ali is research fellow in Net Zero Industry Innovation Centre (NZIIC), where he works in the fields of Hydrogen production pathways, Hydrogen storage and Net zero targets for the industrial clusters. He previously worked at the Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Engineering and Technology, Pakistan as an Associate Professor and had a nearly 15 years of teaching experience.

Dr Usman received his PhD from University of Sheffield, United Kingdom, in 2017. His work was on modelling and simulation of CO₂ capture system for novel configurations of conventional power generation systems. His research focuses on integrating amine-based CO₂ capture technology into existing commercial-scale power plants (coal, biomass, and natural gas) and to perform techno-economic analysis. His research involves creating detailed models which simulate the flexible power plant operation under varying part-load conditions, cofiring biomass with coal and assessing the performance of various solvents. Currently, he is working on developing the process models for blue, green, and turquoise hydrogen pathways and accessing their co-products market and minimizing the liquid hydrogen loss during loading/unloading along with safety procedure for its use at a small airport. His research portfolio also covers, application of AI to sorption enhanced gasification with calcium looping, membrane application to bioethanol distillery, solar-powered airports, MOFs for CO₂ conversion, process schemes for CO₂ direct conversion to SAF, waste-to-energy and waste-to-hydrogen systems.

Over the span of years, he supervised numerous undergraduate and postgraduate students, and his work is published in various reputed international journals. He also participated at several international and national conferences. He was PI of the development of novel catalyst (MOF) for fixation of carbon dioxide for environment sustainability project (NRPU-16189) funded by HEC, Pakistan.