[1][2] After the atomic bomb project, Alam joined the Department of Mathematics at the Quaid-e-Azam University (QAU) as well as serving as visiting faculty at the Institute of Physics, and co-authored papers on variation calculus and fission isomer.

: 155 [3] Alam was educated at the Government College University in Lahore where he studied in 1951 and graduated with Bachelor of Science (BSc) in Mathematics in 1955 under the supervision of Abdus Salam–a theoretical physicist.

: 11–142 [6] His doctoral thesis, titled: Electron Capture by Multiply Charged Ions, provided scientific investigations on charge-crossing involving potential curve crossing, a concept in quantum mechanics.

: 53 [11] Alam originally was not part of the team that was investigating the uranium enrichment under Bashiruddin Mahmood in 1974 and had not seen a gas centrifuge albeit of rudimentary knowledge from the work done by Jesse Beams, an American, in 1940s.

: 143 [3] Eventually other physicists such as Fakhr Hashmi, Javed Arshad Mirza, Eqbal Ahmad Khokhar, and Anwar Ali joined his Airport Development Works facility— thus forming the centrifuge program under Alam.

[12]: 431 [3] After this incident, Alam was transferred to PAEC where he remained associated with the electromagnetic separation program under Dr. Shaukat Hameed Khan, and decided to work on the partial differential equations.

: 59 [11] Alam went to join the Quaid-i-Azam University and briefly taught courses on calculus, and published a computer model on HIV rate of infection along with American scientists.