Dr Aleena Alex

Lecturer

School: Engineering, Physics and Mathematics

Dr. Aleena Alex is a Lecturer in the School of Engineering, Physics and Mathematics at Northumbria University. She holds a PhD in Applied Mechanics from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras, where she developed multiscale mechanical models for hydrating cementitious materials. Prior to joining Northumbria, she held research positions at Newcastle University working on bacteria-based self-healing of concrete in wastewater through an Impact Acceleration project, and developing integrated kinetic Monte Carlo frameworks combining mineral dissolution-precipitation with bacterial growth and metabolism (e-MICP project). She was subsequently awarded a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions fellowship at the University of Basque Country to investigate the de-hydroxylation of kaolinite to metakaolin using reactive force field simulations. She has also won a C-DICE Sandpit and was awarded a proof of concept grant for thermal energy storage research. Dr. Alex contributes to the RILEM technical committees for Data-Driven Concrete Science, Accelerated Mineral Carbonation, and Atomistic Simulations for Cement-Based Materials (ASM), and actively contributes to the research community through publications in leading journals, international conference presentations including keynote lectures, and training workshops on computational modeling techniques.

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Research Themes and Scholarly Interests

Dr. Alex specializes in computational modeling of materials (cement/clay/polymers) with a focus on carbonation, mineralization, and self-healing mechanisms in concrete. Her research employs advanced simulation techniques including kinetic Monte Carlo methods, molecular dynamics (classical and reactive force fields), and multiscale modeling approaches.