Mika Abdalla

Abdalla was engaged to actor Jake Short in 2025 after meeting him on the set of the Hulu comedy Sex Appeal. In June 2026, the pair ended their engagement. Later that year, she began dating her Off Campus co-star Josh Heuston.

Outside of acting, Abdalla participated in competitive ballroom dancing and equestrian activities during her youth. She has cited actors Jennifer Lawrence and Leonardo DiCaprio as major artistic influences.

Mikayla Sofia Abdalla was born in Texas and raised in Dallas. A first-generation American, she is of Bulgarian, Lebanese, Greek, Italian, and German descent.

Abdalla began pursuing print modeling and acting around age five. To accommodate her filming commitments, she attended Spring Creek Academy, which allowed her to balance coursework with work on set. After graduating from high school a year early, she attended the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where she earned a bachelor's degree in philosophy with a minor in film.

Abdalla made her acting debut in 2008 at the age of eight, portraying Jill on the children's television series Barney & Friends. In subsequent years, she appeared in family and independent projects including The Fandango Sisters, Departure, and Summer's Shadow. In 2013, she played Dylan Patterson in the movie An American Girl: Saige Paints the Sky, also performing several tracks on the soundtrack.

In 2015, Abdalla gained wider prominence as the lead character McKeyla McAlister in the Netflix original series Project Mc². Geared toward encouraging girls to explore STEM fields, the series filmed while Abdalla was in high school and required 11-hour workdays on set. The show concluded in 2017 after six seasons and earned Abdalla two Young Artist Award nominations.

Following a hiatus during her university studies, Abdalla returned to acting with guest roles on series such as S.W.A.T. and The Flash, where she played Tinya Wazzo. In 2022, she starred as Avery Hansen-White opposite Jake Short in the Hulu teen comedy Sex Appeal. She followed this with a role as Brooke in the 1991-set coming-of-age feature Snack Shack (2024), directed by Adam Carter Rehmeier.

In 2025, Abdalla made appearances on The Pitt and Suits LA. Her breakout role came in 2026 when she starred as Allie Hayes in Amazon Prime Video's adaptation of Elle Kennedy's Off Campus novel series. The show logged 36 million viewers in its first 12 days, ranking among the service's most-watched series debuts, and was renewed for a second season focused on the romance between Allie and Dean Di Laurentis, played by Stephen Kalyn. In 2026, Abdalla and Kalyn also co-starred in the audio romance series Rent Free.