She has written for the New Civil Engineer. Al-Tabbaa has served on the British Geotechnical Association Executive Committee, the Institution of Civil Engineers' Geotechnical Advisory Panel and the Grounded Improvement Advisory Panel. In 2014 she became the Director of the Future Infrastructure and Built Environment Doctoral Training Centre. She serves on the editorial board of the American Society of Civil Engineers Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering. She is also the UK representative for the Self-healing as Preventative Repair of Concrete Structures (SARCOS) European Cooperation in Science and Technology Action. She was elected a Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers in 2014, recognising her significant contributions to both research and education in civil engineering. In 2016 she was part of a group of academics from the University of Cambridge who wrote to The Daily Telegraph to stress the need for European funding for scientific research. Al-Tabbaa appeared on the BBC Radio Cambridgeshire programme The Naked Scientists.
