Her area of expertise is experimental condensed matter physics with a focus on soft materials and biosystems for industrial and biotechnological applications. Prof. Ashkar is also an expert in x-ray and neutron scattering techniques and their use in investigating nanoscale structures and dynamics in soft matter. She received her Ph.D. from Indiana University in Bloomington, after which she held a joint postdoctoral position at the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the University of Maryland at College Park. Before joining Virginia Tech, she was a Clifford G. Shull Fellow at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.