Coming to the United States in 1950 on a Fulbright fellowship (as expanded to include Egypt via the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948), El-Dabh studied composition with John Donald Robb and Ernst Krenek at the University of New Mexico; with Francis Judd Cooke at the New England Conservatory of Music; with Aaron Copland, Irving Fine, and Luigi Dallapiccola at the Berkshire Music Center; and with Irving Fine at Brandeis University. El-Dabh and his family rented a house in Demarest, New Jersey before buying a home in Cresskill, New Jersey where they lived for some time.