Adil recieved a M.A. and Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago. Her doctoral dissertation, Memorializing al-Maqqarī: The Life, Work, and Worlds of a Muslim Scholar, traces the footsteps of the dynamic scholar al-Maqqarī (d. 1632) who lived in Morocco, traveled throughout the Arabic-speaking Mediterranean, and composed an array of texts, which scholars and the public throughout the world rely on to this day. While at Buffett, Adil presented research about biography, scholarship, and community in seventeenth-century Morocco.