After completing her MSci in Chemistry at the University of Nottingham, Abigail began her PhD, conducting research on how bacteria produce antibiotics in nature. She is currently a researcher at the University of Cambridge, where her work involves using state-of-the-art technology to miniaturise and automate chemical reactions so that it is possible to carry out thousands of tiny reactions in the same time it would take a traditional chemist to do one. The ultimate aim of this work is to be able to predict reaction outcomes and conditions ahead of time.

Abi said: "The other side to my job is machine learning based which is something I had no background in before starting at Cambridge. This involved me learning to code in python and ultimately how to manipulate machine learning algorithms to use the data I had generated in the lab. Although I am not physically in the lab setting up reactions, I still have to draw upon my chemistry background every day."