Ombretta is Senior Lecturer and past President of IAPS, the International Association for People Environment Studies (www.iaps-association.org) (2008-2012; on Board of Trustees 2004-2008). She also served on the AESOP Board until 2004.

Her teaching and research are in the areas of urban design, environment behaviour studies, urban morphology and user participation in design. She holds a PhD in urban design and a Post Doc in housing and regeneration sponsored by the EU.

She is part of the Urban Design Studies Unit in the Department (www.udsu-strath.com), and is an Associate member of the Royal Town Planning Institute, and of the Higher Education Academy.

She teaches in the MSc in Urban Design, in the MArch in Advanced Architectural Design and across the Department especially in 4th year, in all options to do with urban design and the city and dissertations.

She regurarly gets nominated in the Strathclyde Teaching Excellence Awards; in 2016, she won the 'Most Innovative Teacher of teh Year".

Ombretta also runs teaching exchange modules in serveral European Countires, and has recently won a Visitng Professorship in Venice.