Dr. Saleem H. Ali is Chair and Distinguished Professor of Geography at the University of Delaware (USA). He also serves as Lead for Critical Metals at the United Nations University INWEH and as Honorary Professor at the Sustainable Minerals Institute in Australia. Before embarking on an academic career, Prof. Ali worked as an environmental health and safety professional at General Electric Corporation. 

Born in New Bedford, Massachusetts (USA), Dr. Ali grew up in Lahore, Pakistan until his college years, receiving his bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Tufts and his master’s and Ph.D. degrees in environmental planning at Yale and MIT, respectively. 

His laurels include being a National Geographic Explorer, with field experience in more than 170 countries and all continents; being selected as a “Young Global Leader” by the World Economic Forum. He covers a wide swath of writing on environmental systems emanating from his world travels from the Galapagos to Antarctica. 

Dr. Ali’s books include Sustainability: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford) Soil to Foil: Aluminum and the Quest for Industrial Sustainability (Columbia) Earthly Order: How Natural Laws Define Human Life (Oxford) and Treasures of the Earth: Need, Greed and a Sustainable Future (Yale).

Dr. Ali could be contacted via email saleem@udel.edu.