Rate My Professor Abbie Jones

Abbie Jones is Professor of Nuclear Graphite Engineering and Chair in Nuclear Graphite within the Department of Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering at the University of Manchester. She holds the position of Research Area Lead for Nuclear Materials at the Henry Royce Institute for Advanced Materials. Her research examines the fundamental behaviour of nuclear graphite in reactor systems, with a specialisation in irradiation damage processes. Employing advanced microstructural and analytical techniques such as Transmission Electron Microscopy, Raman spectroscopy, X-ray and Synchrotron Diffraction, and Synchrotron tomography, her work establishes structure-property relationships, validated through isotopic inventory and materials property modelling. Professor Jones' team conducts independent research and provides advice on graphite behaviour in Advanced Gas-cooled Reactors to support the Office for Nuclear Regulation. Actively engaged in UK and international coordinated research programmes including FP7, EPSRC, Innovate UK, and IAEA initiatives, she maintains extensive collaborations with nuclear organisations worldwide.

Qualified with BSc Hons, MSc, PhD, and Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA), Professor Jones has secured over £10 million in grants as Principal Investigator and Co-Investigator from government, funding councils, and consultancy sources. She is Co-I on a £2 million National Nuclear User Facility for Molten Salts in Nuclear Technology and possesses a patent-pending for graphite decontamination via molten salt processes. With more than 80 journal articles, government and industrial reports, three book chapters, and contributions to a UK Nuclear Decommissioning Authority strategy document, her scholarship underpins a 4* Research Excellence Framework impact case (2015) and leads one for REF 2021. Key publications include 'Dimensional change, irradiation creep and thermal/mechanical property changes in nuclear graphite' (International Materials Reviews, 2016), 'An understanding of lattice strain, defects and disorder in nuclear graphite' (Carbon, 2017), 'Electrochemical decontamination of irradiated nuclear graphite from corrosion and fission products using molten salt' (Energy & Environmental Science, 2021), and 'Structural recovery and chemical characterisation of ion-irradiated graphite for advanced nuclear applications' (Carbon, 2026). A finalist for the Research Project of the Year award (2016), she served on the Office for Nuclear Regulation Graphite Technical Advisory Committee (2018-2021) and as committee member and work package leader for the IAEA International Decommissioning Network on Irradiated Graphite Processing Approaches (GRAPA, 2016-2020).