Lydia graduated with a BSc (Hons) in Sport and Materials Science at the University of Birmingham in 2009, after which she went on to study a PhD on Ti-based metal hydrides for hydrogen storage and compression applications under the supervision of Professor David Book.
After obtaining her PhD, Lydia worked as a Research Fellow in both the Hydrogen Materials Group and Magnetic Materials Groups at the University of Birmingham from 2013-2015, working on UK and EU funded projects ESCHER (Reference Number: EP/K021117/1) and REPROMAG (EU H2020 Grant Agreement Number: 636881).
In 2016, Lydia relocated to South Africa to take up a Postdoctoral position at HySA Systems, based at the University of the Western Cape. During her time at HySA Systems, Lydia was involved with scaling up and optimising the production of metal hydrides for fuel cell powered mining vehicles as part of the Department of Science and Technology Key Project KP3-S02.
Lydia returned to the UK in late 2018 to resume a position in the Magnetic Materials Group, initially working on NEOHIRE (EU H2020, Grant Agreement Number: 720838), SUSMAGPRO (EU H2020, Grant Agreement Number: 821114) and more recently “Securing Critical Rare Earth Magnets for the UK Supply Chain” (SCREAM) funded by the Driving the Electric Revolution challenge, delivered by Innovate UK for UK Research and Innovation. As part of these projects, Lydia’s work has involved dismantling and performing analysis on neodymium-iron-boron (NdFeB) containing end of life components from a range of applications including wind turbine generators, electric vehicle components and hard disk drives, and processing them under hydrogen to recover powder which can be used to manufacture either novel, resin-bonded permanent magnets or sintered magnets.
In September 2022 Lydia started a part time teaching role on the University of Birmingham’s Net Zero Together Skills Bootcamp; a 10-week, part time CPD programme funded by the West Midlands Combined Authority.
Lydia is currently investigating hydrogen embrittlement across a range of different metal and alloy systems as part of the Rolls-Royce UTC agreement and is Co-I on the Innovate UK project “Re Rewind” which aims to establish the UK's first circular supply chain for the rare earth magnets used in wind turbines.
In September 2023 Lydia was appointed Assistant Professor in Materials Science & Engineering in the School of Metallurgy & Materials.