Salah is a Technical Lead at the University of Strathclyde’s Advanced Forming Research Centre (AFRC), one of the UK’s seven High Value Manufacturing Catapult Centres. He is an expert in measurements, modelling and control of residual stress and in the mechanical and microstructural characterisations of materials. A key theme of his research is to control materials characteristics and residual stress during manufacturing process of forging and forming. Salah’s previous research had focused on meso-scale fracture and the behaviour of materials under service loads in critical environments, using advanced photography techniques and electron microscopy to determine how microstructural features interacts with cracks. More recently, he has focused on developing novel techniques for measurements of manufacturing induced residual stress to control dimensional tolerance and part’s non-conformance during manufacturing, while retaining desired microstructure. Salah joined the University of Strathclyde in 2010 where he is currently the AFRC's CORE Research Programme Technical Lead, and the chair of Technical Board.  He is also supervising  PhD and EngD students at Strathclyde Engineering Doctorate Centre.

Salah is a Fellow of The Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (IOM3) and he is registered as a Chartered Engineer (CEng).