Professor of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge

Professor Al-Tabbaa graduated from Bristol University in 1983 in Civil Engineering and obtained an MPhil and PhD degrees in Soil Mechanics in 1984 and 1987 respectively from Cambridge University working on the permeability and stress-strain response of speswhite kaolin clay both experimentally and numerically. She then worked as a geotechnical engineer with Ove Arup & Partners Consulting Engineers in their London and Nottingham Offices for just over three years and was involved in the geotechnical design and construction aspects of a number of projects including Embankment Place and Ludgate Railways Works in the centre of London and Corby and Peterborough power stations.

In 1991 she took up a lectureship at the University of Birmingham and in 1997 returned to Cambridge University as a University Lecturer, then Reader in Geotechnical Engineering, and now Professor of Civil & Environmental Engineering. She is a fellow of Sidney Sussex College. She is a Chartered Engineer and a Member of the Institution of Civil Engineers.

Professor Al-Tabbaa was a member of the British Geotechnical Association Executive Committee (2001-2004), a member of the Institution of Civil Engineers Geotechnical Engineering Advisory Panel (2003-2005), Ground Improvement Advisory Panel (2007-2012) and the UK representative on the International Society of Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering Technical Committee TC211 on Ground Improvement. She was awarded the Institution of Civil Engineers Reed and Mallik Medal in 2003 for her paper on the five-year soil mixing treatment work at the West Drayton site near Heathrow Airport. She presented her research on self-healing concrete at the World Economic Forum in Davos 2016 (see here).