Alif is a postdoctoral researcher working in the fields of respiratory and occupational health. He has a strong track record of research in the fields of respiratory and occupational health, epidemiology and biostatistics. To date, he has published 23 refereed journal articles. He is an author of five journal articles on respiratory and occupational health, including four as the first author.

Alif received his PhD in epidemiology and population health from the University of Melbourne in 2018 for his research into "occupational exposure and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease and lung function in middle-aged Australian adults" using data from one of the world’s longest-running population-based respiratory cohort studies, known as the Tasmanian Longitudinal Health Study (TAHS). He also holds Master of Public Health (MPH, Epidemiology) in 2009 for his research into "occupational lung disease among timber workers in Bangladesh". He also has a clinical background in Bachelor of Dental Surgery (BDS) in 2008 from Bangladesh.

Alif was awarded an international France-Australia Science Innovation Collaboration (FASIC) Rod Rickards Fellowship in 2018. This fellowship allowed him to undertake a research project on “Aging and Chronic Diseases. Epidemiological and Public Health Approaches”, investigating occupational exposures to solvents and chronic respiratory diseases and lung function using French cohort data at the French Institute of Health and Medical Research (INSERM).

His current work includes work on occupational lung diseases in Australia and the European Community Respiratory Health Survey (ECRHS) within the Monash Centre for Occupational and Environmental Health (MonCOEH). He also teaches “Introductory Biostatistics” and “Biostatistics Concepts and Application” to the MPH students and “Occupational and Environmental Medicine” to the third-year MBBS students.