Ava is a PhD researcher in the department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University of Sheffield. She is supervised by Dr Brant Walkley and Prof John Provis as part of the Sustainable Materials at Sheffield (SMASH) Research Team. She has industrial supervision from the National Nuclear Laboratory (NNL) and is funded by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA). 

Ava completed her undergraduate degree in Civil Engineering (BEng) at Northumbria University in 2020 where she won the Cundall Prize (Best Undergraduate Thesis Project 20/21) for her project entitled The Effect of Capillary Pressure in Shrinkage Cracking in Young Age Concrete which explored embedding High Capacity Tensiometers (HCTs) into concrete throughout the curing process to measure capillary pressure using HCTs which were originally developed to measure soil suction. She was elected Vice President (Education) of Northumbria Students’ Union for the 21/22 academic year where she sat on many executive committees which supported the governance and management of the University and its campuses, including the Board of Governors, Health and Safety Committee and Sustainability Committee. 

Ava joined the University of Sheffield to undertake her PhD in September 2022. Ava’s PhD explores cement-superplasticiser interactions in blended Portland cement wasteforms with a particular focus on civil-grade blast furnace slag. In addition to her PhD work, Ava is a Trustee at Sheffield Students’ Union, President of GRAND Committee, and the PGR representative on the Senate Academic Assurance Committee (SAAC). Ava is also a Grantham Scholar, as part the training programme at the Grantham Centre for Sustainable Futures.