[1] She completed her Master's and doctoral degrees at the University of Cambridge, working on the stress-strain responses of Kaolinite.

[2] She obtained her PhD in 1987 with a dissertation entitled Permeability and stress-strain response of speswhite kaolin.

[5] Al-Tabbaa returned to the University of Cambridge in 1997 and was made a Fellow of Sidney Sussex College.

[10] She was part of a £1.67 million Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council project that established the Centre of Excellence on Intelligent Construction Materials to reduce the cost of infrastructure maintenance of future construction.

[17] She is also the UK representative for the Self-healing as Preventative Repair of Concrete Structures (SARCOS) European Cooperation in Science and Technology Action.

[19] In 2016 she was part of a group of academics from the University of Cambridge who wrote to The Daily Telegraph to stress the need for European funding for scientific research.