Abdullah is an Assistant Professor of Industrial and Management Systems Engineering, Kuwait University who was a Short-term Fellow with the Kuwait Programme, Middle East Centre in 2019. He holds a PhD in Industrial and Systems Engineering  (2017) from the University of Southern California (USC). He also holds a Masters degree in Operations Research from USC (2015), a Masters, and Bachelors degree in Industrial and Systems Engineering from University of Wisconsin, Madison (2011 and 2010, respectively). He was part of the Health Systems Engineering Lab at Viterbi School of Engineering in USC which focuses on applications of engineering methods and systems approach in the health care domain.

Abdullah is involved in diabetes-related research at the Dasman Diabetes Institute and health reform discussions at the Ministry of Health, Kuwait. Abdullah specializes in various types of modeling to study complex systems and inform healthcare policy. He has published models on health policy relating to patient choice of providers, quality of care, costs, and health care market competition.