Abdel-khalik earned his undergraduate degree in commerce from Cairo University, an MBA (accounting) and a masters (economics) from Indiana University-Bloomington, and a doctorate (accountancy) from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He taught at Illinois, Columbia University, Duke University, and the University of Florida before returning to the University of Illinois.

Abdel-khalik has published articles in The Accounting Review, Journal of Accounting Research, Contemporary Research in Accounting, Decision Sciences, Organization Studies and the European Accounting Review and has authored and co-authored research studies published by the American Accounting Association and the Financial Accounting Standards Board. He is currently the Editor of the International Journal of Accounting and has served as the founding editor of Journal of Accounting Literature and editor of The Accounting Review, the quarterly research journal of the American Accounting Association. His research interests are in the areas of financial accounting and reporting.