[3] He served as Royal Society Research Professor, and a Principal Investigator (PI) at the Engineering Design Centre at the University of Cambridge.

[4][5] In 1990, Ashby was elected as a member into the National Academy of Engineering for outstanding contributions to the understanding of mechanical behavior of materials and for development of formats useful for design.

[citation needed] In doing so he has developed a comprehensive approach that associates to the expected mechanical functions of an object a performance index that has to be optimized.

Finally, the selected materials are shown in a 2-dimensional chart, called the Ashby diagram, in order to view those with the highest performance index.

In more recent years he has concentrated on materials and the environment and sustainability, writing award-winning textbooks and pioneering teaching methods to get this complex topic across to engineering students.