Professor Aly is a tenured professor of economics at Ohio State University; before joining Nile University as Dean of the Business School in May 2017, he served as the Founding Dean of the School of Public Administration and Development Economics, and Professor of Economics at the Doha institute (DI) for Graduate Studies.

In July 2015, Professor Aly was granted Emeritus status at Ohio State University. He started there in 1989 as an assistant professor and gone through the ranks to reach full Professor in 2008. He served on the Marion Campus, and in several positions in Columbus including faculty associate at the Middle East Studies Center, and faculty associate at the John Glenn Institute for Public Service and Public Policy.

Professor Aly is a lifetime research fellow at the Economic Research Forum and served as the chief research economist and lead economist at the African Development Bank (2009-2011); as the senior advisor to the Minister of Planning in Egypt (Fall 2012), and as the Director of Graduate Studies at Zayed University, UAE (2002-2005). He is currently serving as a technical advisor to both the IMF and USAID.

Professor Aly was a co-editor of the African Development Review (2009-2012), and of the Middle East Business and Economic Review (2002-2010). He is a member of the editorial boards of the Journal of Development and Economic Policies, and of the International Journal of Applied Business and Economics Research. In 2004, he was elected to the executive board of the Middle East Economics Association, where he served as treasurer, an executive secretary, and two terms (2013-2019) as the association’s president.

He is the author of over fifty articles published in professional journals including the American Economic Review, Review of Economics and Statistics, Economic Development and Cultural Change, World Development, Economics Letters, Applied Economics, and Journal of Developing Areas, among others; he also has a life time citations number that exceeds 2000.