Aya has worked as an architect in Egypt and Portugal. Currently, she is a pre-doctoral researcher in the University of Sheffield, School of Architecture, UK. Meanwhile, she is an Early Stage Researcher (ESR 4) for the Re-Dwell Research Project on Sustainable and Affordable Housing in Europe funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie.She started her career in academia right after obtaining her BSc from the Architecture and Urban Planning Department at the Port Said University (PSU) in Egypt. She was offered a tenure track position in the same department. During her master studies, she investigated the computational design and optimization techniques to support decision-making using performance-based parametric design strategies to promote buildings sustainability. She published and presented her thesis case study in the Building Simulation and Optimization Conference (BSO) 2016 held in Newcastle University, UK. After her MSc, she was promoted to be a teaching assistant for undergraduate courses that included designing housing projects and residential neighbourhoods.As an architect, she started building her professional experience since being an undergraduate. She developed her strong conceptual and technical design experience in the industry from being involved in several projects including residence, social buildings, and landscape for public spaces. In Portugal, she joined an AEC company based in Lisbon, where she built a substantial experience in Building Information Modelling (BIM) for schematic design and execution of housing, commercial and industrial building projects. Moreover, she experimented BIM parametric techniques to facilitate design workflow and the multidisciplinary teamwork. Therefore, her current research interest aims to further investigate BIM strategies to conduct Lifecycle Cost Analysis (LCCA) to support housing sustainability and affordability.