Khalil Al Handawi received his PhD in mechanical engineering from McGill University. His dissertation focused on the optimization of aerospace design for flexibility and robustness when presented with uncertain requirements. His research in engineering design resulted in decision support tools for accommodating changing requirements during product development. The tools help designers allocate design margins and flexibility to accommodate the change in requirements.

Khalil Al Handawi is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Systems Optimization Lab (SOL) in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at McGill University (supervised by Prof. Michael Kokkolaras, a member of GERAD) and the Systems Engineering Design (SED) group (supervised by Prof. Ola Isaksson) at Chalmers University of Technology. His current research focuses on the optimization of complex engineering systems and uncertainty modeling with an emphasis on aerospace applications. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Khalil Al Handawi collaborated with GERAD members to provide decision support tools for public health policymaking based on agent-based and machine learning models.