Her career has involved the application and development of Counter-current liquid-liquid extraction technology (often referred to as CCC). After she graduated from the Chemistry Department of Moscow State University (Russia) in 1993, she focussed on CCC theory and its application to inorganic and radioactive analysis culminating in her PhD, awarded in 2001 from Russian Academy of Sciences. After moving to Brunel University in 2003, Dr Ignatova worked closely with industry developing novel applications of CCC/CPC and its scale up. Her work on the recovery of actives from waste streams won a prize at SPICA 2012 in Brussels and she was recently invited to participate in a UK Government “Mission to China on Sustainable Manufacturing”.