[1][2] People about whom he is considered an expert and scholar include: James T. Farrell, Richard Wright, Mike Gold, Lorraine Hansberry, and John Brooks Wheelwright among many other writers on the Left.

[7] Some of the hitherto lesser known writers in whom he has expertise include: Ann Petry, Jo Sinclair, and Willard Motley.

[4][8] In 1997, he joined the editorial board of Science & Society: A Journal of Marxist Thought and Analysis (founded 1936).

[10] On 16 March 1986, Wald was arrested for partaking in a "sit-in" at the office of Rep. Carl Pursell (R-Ann Arbor) to protest his support for President Ronald Reagan's plan to send $100 million to the counter-revolutionary Contras in Nicaragua.

"[5] In 1975, he married Celia Stodola (1946–1992), who became a practicing nurse in the Obstetrical Unit of the Women's Hospital at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

[5][16] In 2001, he began a relationship with former student Angela D. Dillard, then a professor of African-American History at New York University.

Upon his retirement, the Regents of the University of Michigan saluted Wald a "distinguished teacher and researcher by naming Alan M. Wald professor emeritus of English language and literature and professor emeritus of American culture," stating: Professor Wald examined the varied currents of U.S. leftwing politics and radical esthetics, captured the specificity of writers' lives both renowned and rediscovered by his own investigations, and widened the corpus of U.S. literature to include writers across all lines of race, gender, class, and sexuality... served as director of the Program in American Culture (2000-03) and played an instrumental role in establishing the department as a leader in multicultural scholarship... [and] worked to assure racial equality in all aspects of University life and to preserve academic freedom.

[24] Proceedings were published as Lineages of the Literary Left: Essays in Honor of Alan M. Wald by the University of Michigan's Maize Books.

[25] In 2007, he was appointed Collegiate Professor by the Regents and named his chair in honor of Chandler Davis, mathematician – and one-time political prisoner, after being fired from the University of Michigan and followed by blacklisting).