Sharon Ashbrook


Sharon Elizabeth Marie Ashbrook is a Professor of Physical Chemistry at the University of St Andrews.
Her research is focused on the application of multinuclear solid-state NMR spectroscopy techniques as well as the combination of these techniques with first-principles calculations to investigate structure, order and dynamics of solid state materials.
Other areas of interest include microporous framework materials, high pressure minerals and the encapsulation of nuclear waste with ceramics.

Education and career

Ashbrook studied Chemistry at Hertford College in Oxford in 1997 and then remained in Oxford to study for her DPhil. Ashbrook then moved to a postdoctoral research post at the University of Exeter. Later Ashbrook was then awarded a Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Fellowship at the University of Cambridge.
Ashbrook has published over 110 papers in the area of structure and disorder in the solid state, using NMR spectroscopy and DFT calculations.

Honours and prizes

Her work has garnered awards and prizes, including a Royal Society of Chemistry's Corday-Morgan Prize in 2015 for her contribution to the structure of materials by using a combination of solid-state NMR spectroscopy and first-principles calculations.
She has also been awarded the Royal Society of Chemistry's Harrison Prize and the Marlow Award, and the Makdougall Brisbane Medal from the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
Ashbrook was elected a Member of the RSE Young Academy of Scotland in 2011, and elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2016.
In 2017 Ashbrook was awarded the Suffrage Science Award after her recent work on the "Academic Women Now" booklet about academic women in Scotland.

Professional activities

During Ashbrook's career she has been very active in many different committees including: Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, Member of the Institute of Physics, Member of the Mineralogical Society of Great Britain and a member of Ampere Board of Trustees 2016-2020.
Sharon Ashbrook also regularly organises outreach programs with local schools through her role as the Vice-Chair of the Tayside Local Section of the Royal Society of Chemistry and as a RSE Fellow.