She is the head of Laboratory of Construction Materials at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne[1] and served as the editor-in-chief of the Cement and Concrete Research journal for 15 years.

She earned her PhD in Materials Science from the Imperial College London in 1983 on the development of microstructure during the hydration of Portland cement[2] under the supervision of Professor P. L. Pratt.

In 1995 she decided to leave academia [3] and joined the Central Research Laboratory of Lafarge near Lyon in France where she was a Senior Scientist and then Head of Calcium Aluminates Department.

[7][8] She co-authored with Vanderley M. John and Ellis M. Gartner with the support of the UNEP-SBCI (The United Nations Environment Programme - Sustainable Building and Climate Initiative),[9] a reference report summarizing the main conclusions on the most viable low-CO2, eco-efficient cement-based materials for the future of construction.

[10] In 2004, she founded Nanocem,[11] a consortium of 23 academic and 10 industrial partners interested in fundamental research of cement and concrete[12] and still serves as the principal coordinator.