Kholoud has worked in HIV since 1986 and leads an epidemiology programme of work in HIV research. She gained an MSc in Medical Statistics at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and a PhD in AIDS and HIV Infection at UCL estimating the HIV incubation period distribution through a national HIV cohort. 

Her main research interests are in HIV natural history and primary HIV infection. Most of her work has been within industrialised country cohorts although she has also co-ordinated a randomised controlled trial recruiting in Uganda and South Africa and within an international consortium evaluating antiretroviral therapy roll-out programmes in Africa. She was Principal Investigator for the UK Register of HIV Seroconverters and CASCADE, an EU-funded collaboration of HIV seroconverter cohorts. CASCADE then became part of a large Network of Excellence, EuroCoord, which she also led.

Kholoud has collaborated widely within the UK and internationally with colleagues in European, Australian and north American research institutions. She is also Departmental Graduate Tutor.