Dr. Ali grew up in Pakistan and Jersey City, NJ, and he attended college at Rutgers University in Newark, NJ. He obtained his medical degree from Stanford School of Medicine, where he studied cardiac regeneration and committed to the physician-scientist pathway. He went to University of California San Francisco for residency in Internal Medicine, followed by Cardiology fellowship training at University of Texas Southwestern. Dr. Ali is a general cardiologist at Columiba University Irving Medical Center.