During his PhD, Trabolsi studied supramolecular systems based on porphyrins, fullerenes, and oligo-phenylene vinylene (OPV). Formerly, Trabolsi joined Sir Fraser Stoddart’s group at UCLA as a research scholar and then at Northwestern University, where he focused on the synthesis and the characterization of mechanically interlocked molecules. In 2009, Trabolsi moved to King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia as a research scientist at the membrane center.