Alula is a graduate of Oxford University and has an MA and PhD in Social Anthropology from Manchester University, and has taught at Addis Ababa University. He worked in the Wellbeing in Developing Countries project at the University of Bath, and is also a lead researcher for WIDE, a longitudinal study of community change in rural Ethiopia.

His research interests include migration and displacement, poverty and well-being, community change; food security and social protection, and children and youth development. He has been involved in policy dialogue on child marriage and FGM, early childhood and youth development. Alula is a founding member of the Child Research and Practice Forum, Board member of the Ethiopian Society of Sociologists, Social Workers and Anthropologists, and Board Chair of the Forum for Social Studies.