She is a leading social scientist with a specialist focus on climate change. Her unique focus has been on the interdisciplinary nexus of poverty, livelihoods and resilience in relation to global environmental change, focusing on issues pertaining to cities, sustainable land use, water and deforestation in Africa, Latin America, South-East Asia and Europe.

Her work has been published across the social and sustainability sciences with notable publications on the politics and practice of resilience, adaptation and development. Her current research focus is on setting a new agenda on loss and damage (impacts of climate-related stressors that occur despite efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to climatic changes),including on the role of collective action, environmental injustice, and resistance to adaptation in the context of societal transformations. She is lead author for the IPCC Chapter 8 on poverty, livelihoods and sustainable development.