Dr. Alkhalil Adoum was born on New Year's Day, 1957 in Aboudeia, Republic of Chad. He married in 1986 and is the father of six children. Alkhalil attended Lycee Ahmed Mangué high school in the city of Sarh (southern Chad) and graduated in June 1977. He then attended the University of Chad (department of applied sciences, biology option) from Oct. 1977 to Feb. 1979 but stopped due to civil war. Alkhalil studied meteorology at the Institut Hydrometeorologique de Formation et de Recherches (IHFR) in Oran Algeria with a WMO scholarship from 1980 to 1984 and returned to Chad after graduation to hold the position of head of the climate service at the Water Resources and Meteorology Directorate from 1984 to 1986. He obtained a M.Sc. majoring in meteorology in 1990 and a Ph.D. majoring in agricultural meteorology in 1994 from Iowa State University. After that, he returned to Chad and held the position of FEWS Country representative from 1995 to 2000. From the year 2000 to present Alkhalil has been the FEWS NET Regional Scientist for Sahel/West Africa based at AGRHYMET Regional Center in Niamey, Republic of Niger.

Currently Alkhalil's research focuses on the development of robust indicators to monitor growing season and assess its outcome. Such indicators should take into account both rainfall quantity and time distribution, the seasonal history of the vegetation such as MODIS-NDVI temporal profiles.