Dr. Alam is a professor of English at University of Dhaka.  He is a writer and translator. He taught at several universities around the globe, including Clemson University, USA as a Fulbright Scholar, and Jadavpur University, India as a Visiting Associate Professor. Besides academic responsibilities, he was also the Director of the Advanced Studies in the Humanities of the University of Dhaka from 1993 to 1996 and Adviser of the Dhaka University Central Library from 2002 to 2003. He is currently a member of the Education Policy Implementation Committee constituted by the Government of Bangladesh. He teaches at the Department of English, University of Dhaka. He also is an advisor at the Department of English of East West University. He wrote Unfinished Memories (Penguin 2012), an unfinished autobiography of Bangladesh revolutionary leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. He edited The Essential Tagore (Visva-Bharati and Harvard University Press, 2011) in collaboration with Radha Charabarty.