Sydney Environment Institute

Professor Ali Abbas, FIEAust FRSN

Professor Ali Abbas is an internationally recognised leader in process systems engineering, circular economy innovation, and sustainability transitions. He currently serves as the Associate Dean (Research) within the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Sydney, driving strategic research initiatives and fostering significant industry and government collaborations. He is also the Founding Director of the Waste Transformation Research Hub, a national research centre addressing technological challenges in Australia's waste industry.

Ali completed his Bachelor's degree and PhD in Chemical Engineering at the University of Sydney. He previously held academic appointments at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore and the University of New South Wales (UNSW Asia) in Singapore, along with visiting professorships at leading international institutions, including Harvard University.

With over 20 years' experience in Process Systems Engineering (PSE), Ali's expertise encompasses process intensification, techno-economic feasibility, multiscale modelling, process scale-up, optimisation, and the design of low-emissions technologies. His work spans applications in eco-industrial parks, clean energy, biotechnology, waste transformation, carbon capture, and biomedical systems.

Ali has been at the forefront of circular economy transitions in Australia, identifying practical pathways to implement circular economy principles effectively. As Australia's inaugural Chief Circular Engineer at Circular Australia, he actively shapes national sustainability policies and strategies. He is the founding Chair of theAustralian Circular Economy Conference, an influential national platform driving collaboration on circular economy solutions across industry, government, and academia.

A prolific researcher, Ali conducts fundamental computational and applied research, with a strong emphasis on resource optimisation and efficiency across multiple scales. He has authored over 160 scientific and engineering publications, and is recognised as a Highly Cited Researcher by Clarivate Analytics, placing him among the top 2% globally in his field.

Ali has received numerous prestigious awards, including the Australia-Harvard Fellowship (2011), the Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (ATSE) Fellowship as an Australia-China Future Leader in Clean Coal Technologies (2012), the international PSE Model-Based Innovation Prize (London, 2008; runner-up 2015), and the Sydney Research Accelerator (SOAR) Fellowship for outstanding research leadership. He was also a finalist in the 2023 Eureka Prize for Innovative Research in Sustainability.

Ali translates his research into impactful commercial outcomes through deep-tech ventures, including Scimita Group and Trofica, developing breakthrough technologies in clean energy, circular economy, and sustainable urban agriculture. He provides strategic advisory services to industry and government bodies, leveraging his expertise to advance sustainable technologies and policies. Additionally, Ali serves on the board of the Australian Government's Council for Australian-Arab Relations (CAAR), actively fostering international research and innovation partnerships.

BA (Hons) AdMU; MBA ESCP Europe; PhD Sydney; GradCertEdStudies Sydney; GradDipTrainHRM Leicester

Sandra Alday is an Associate Professor at the University of Sydney Business School. Extending her experience in international strategy and organisation development consulting, her scholarly research explores the nature of risk, how it is perceived and communicated, and how it is managed. She also investigates the impact of risk management approaches on equity and sustainability particularly in Southeast Asian contexts. Because pathways to sustainable futures require different ways of thinking and doing, she further examines how learning experiences can transform the way people and organisations think about risk and sustainability. 

Sandra is Deputy Director (Partnerships) of the Sydney Southeast Asia Centre (SSEAC) at the University of Sydney and Program Director of the Master of Management and Master of Management (CEMS) programs at the University of Sydney Business School. She is Vice President of the Academy of International Business Sustainability Interest Group (AIB SIG), Past President of the Society for Risk Analysis-Australia and New Zealand (SRA-ANZ), and Past Councillor of the international Society for Risk Analysis (SRA). She is an Associate Editor of the Journal of Management Education (JME) and a member of the Management and Organizational Behavior Teaching Society (MOBTS) Oceania Committee. Committed to excellence and innovation in higher education, Sandra is a recipient of an Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC) Citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning.

PhD (Warwick); MA (Warwick); BA (Catania).

Giorgia Alù completed a PhD in comparative literature at the University of Warwick (UK). Her research interests range from Italian cultural history to comparative literature and visual studies. Before joining the University of Sydney she taught at the University of Warwick and at the University of Reading (UK).

My research is in the areas of political economy, network empirics, institutions, conflict and development. I'm passionate about using innovative data and tools to explore the world around us.

Dr Michael Anderson is Professor of Creativity and Arts Education in the Sydney School of Education and Social Work at The University of Sydney and Co-Director of the CREATE Centre. He is an internationally recognised educational leader in school transformation processes. He has taught, researched and published in education and transformation for over 20 years, including 20 books and 65 book chapters and journal articles. His international research and practice focuses on how the 4Cs can be integrated using coherent frameworks to support leaders as they work towards transformation in their contexts. Michael's most recent work emerging from his research and partnerships with schools include How Schools Transform (2024 ed), Transforming Education (Bloomsbury, 2021) and Transforming Schools (2017)

• Transforming Organizations (with Miranda Jefferson, Bloomsbury, 2019)
• Transforming Schools (with Miranda Jefferson, Bloomsbury, 2017)
• Applied Theatre: Research (with Peter O'Connor, Bloomsbury, 2015),
• Partnerships in Education Research: Creating Knowledge that Matters (with Kelly Freebody, Bloomsbury, 2014),
• Masterclass in Drama Education (Continuum, UK),

The research reported in these publications uncovers innovative linkages between drama, the arts play, creativity and learning that have the potential to significantly improve learning for young people. Michael was a drama a teacher and Creative Arts Consultant with the NSW Department of Education and has worked for NESA in senior assessment and curriculum roles.

B.Med.Sc., M.B., B.S., M.D. (Melbourne), M.A., Ph.D. (Pennsylvania); FAHA, FASSA, FAHMS, FRSN

Warwick Anderson is the Janet Dora Hine Professor of Politics, Governance and Ethics in the Discipline of Health and leader of the Politics, Governance and Ethics Theme with the Charles Perkins Centre. From 2012-17 Warwick Anderson was ARC Laureate Fellow in the Department of History and the Center for Values, Ethics and the Law in Medicine. Additionally, he has an affiliation with History and Philosophy of Science at Sydney and is a Professorial Fellow of the School of Population and Global Health at the University of Melbourne. In 2018-19 he was the Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser Chair of Australian Studies at Harvard University, based in the Department of the History of Science.

As an historian of science, medicine and public health, focusing on Australasia, the Pacific, Southeast Asia and the United States, Professor Anderson is especially interested in ideas about race, human difference, and citizenship in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He has also studied the history of immunology (particularly autoimmunity) and perceptions of 'waste'. Occasionally he writes programmatically on postcolonial science studies and, more generally, on science and globalisation. In recent years, his research has focussed on the conceptual development of disease ecology and planetary health, i.e., the population health impacts of climate change.

Before moving to Sydney in 2007, Prof. Anderson was Robert Turell Professor of Medical History and Population Health, Professor of the History of Science, and Chair of the Department of Medical History and Bioethics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. At Wisconsin he also served on the steering committee of the Holtz Center for Science and Technology Studies and was a Faculty Affiliate of the Center for Southeast Asian Studies. Previously Prof. Anderson taught at Harvard, Melbourne (where he founded the Centre for Health and Society, now the Centre for Health Equity), UCSF and Berkeley. He has been awarded grants and fellowships from the Australian Research Council, American Council of Learned Societies, the National Science Foundation, the Social Science Research Council (US), and the Rockefeller and Mellon Foundations. He was the Frederick Burkhardt Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton (2005-6), and a Guggenheim Fellow (2007-8). He has held visiting professorships at Harvard, Manchester and McMaster universities. In 2013 he was John Hope Franklin Fellow at Duke University and the Whitney J. Oakes Fellow in the Humanities Center at Princeton University. His books have been awarded the W.K. Hancock Prize (AHA, 2004); the Philippines National Book Award for Social Science (2008); the NSW Premier's General History Prize (2009 and 2014); the William H. Welch Medal (AAHM, 2010); and the Ludwik Fleck Prize (4S, 2010).

Prof. Anderson is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Humanities (FAHA), the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia (FASSA), the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences (FAHMS), and the Royal Society of NSW (FRSN). In 2023, he was awarded the John Desmond Bernal Prize of the Society for Social Studies of Science for distinguished contributions to science and technology studies, the Society's lifetime achievement award. In 2025, he was awarded the Arthur J. Viseltear Prize for lifetime achievement in public health history by the American Public Health Association. The Australian's research review named him Australia's 'top historian' for 2026.

BEc (Hons) LLB (Hons) PhD (Sydney) Grad Dip (Sydney)

Lisa is a market system, food, retailing, and supermarket expert, who does applied research bridging academia and industry. Her industry focus of markets-as-networks within retailing for consumption, means her research intersects with retail, commercialisation (marketing), micro-economics, public policy, and law, as she prioritises social impact. The themes which fall within this are competition, strategy, sustainability, innovation, store brands, stakeholders, B2B, and markets-as-networks (industry).

As one of the few Māori (or First Nations) marketing and commercialisation scholars in ANZ, Lisa integrates her indigneous philosophy, cultural knowledge, and understanding to influence her research and teaching. This includes incorporating this to improve social and environmental sustainability, modern diets, and sustainable innovation. In teaching this translates to embedding cultural respect and curiosity beyond what we see so that we can grow.

Lisa also brings a wealth of industry experience from the food, grocery, and broader retail industry, having spent ~20 years in various commercial roles from a junior analyst to senior leadership, in leading multinational organisations, regional food production, and startups. She has worked and engaged with all grocery retailers across both ANZ, and most non-supermarket majors retailers and channels in ANZ.

Professor Thomas Astell-Burt is Professor of Cities and Planetary Health and Founding Director of the Centre for Flourishing Cities at the University of Sydney. Thomas is ranked first out of over 10,000 scientists globally for his research on nature and health. He is a Clarivate Top 1% Highly Cited Researcher for three consecutive years and is listed in the Stanford-Elsevier Top 2% scientists worldwide. An Australian Research Council (ARC) Future Fellow, he leads major national research programs exploring how nature-based interventions and urban design can help to address depression, diabetes, and dementia. As Co-Director of the Population Wellbeing and Environment Research Lab (PowerLab), Thomas' work has informed urban greening strategies in Sydney, across Australia, and in hundreds of cities worldwide.

Robyn Backen is a contemporary artist whose work makes connections between art, science and philosophy. Her sound, light works, constructions, and computer-generated systems often examine the cultural context of the spaces they inhabit. Drawing upon more than 20 years of research into technology, materials, and communication, Backen has completed many large public commissions, international shows, and residencies, including most recently in China and Sweden. She is also a recipient of the Australia Council Fellowship.

Backen has shown in many national and international exhibitions including Australian Perspecta (1991 and 1997), Spirit and Place Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney (1996), Flow National Gallery, Kuala Lumpur (2000), Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennial, Japan (2003), Imagining Prometheus, Milan, Italy (2003) and Whispering Trees De Overkant, Den Haag Sculpur, Holland (2007),Exposure, Rejmyre, Sweden (2011), Sookmyung Women's University Gallery, South Korea (2011), Daya / Kindness: Australia-India a cultural exchange, Habitat Centre, New Delhi, RMIT Gallery, Melbourne (2012). Most recently she was commission to create a solo installation for Incinerator Art Space, Willoughby Biennial, Sydney- If you do not speak, do I speak for you? (2015).

Backen has completed many large public commissioned artworks such as Weeping Walls(2001) at Sydney International Airport and Delicate Balance,at Ballast Point Park for the Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority 2009 and Night Watch for Brisbane CBD2013. She was one of the four commissioned artists to develop a site specific artwork forSiteworks - a series of interactive projects focused on the unique Bundanon properties. Backen is one of the five international artists invited to collaborate and develop the touring artwork Nomanslanding, Sydney, Germany and Scotland (2015-17).

Robyn Backen,Backspace: the art of communication: works from 1990-2010 by Dr Susan Best published in 2011, examines two decades of installation work by Robyn Backen.

Shuvo Bakar holds a PhD in Statistics from the University of Southampton, UK. Prior to joining the University of Sydney, he worked as an Assistant Professor at Yale University, USA; Lecturer at the Australian National University; and as a Scientist at Data61, CSIRO.

He teaches several postgraduate programs (statistics and biostatistics units) at The University of Sydney. He serves on the Editorial Board of Nature Scientific Reports and Discover Public Health (Springer-Nature), and is the Statistics Editor for Kidney International. Shuvo also leads BayesHealth: A Bayesian Hub for Health Sciences, an initiative dedicated to advancing statistical innovation and evidence-based health research through Bayesian methodologies and collaborative learning. He has further been recognised as a GitHub Arctic Code Vault Contributor for his contributions to open-source scientific and computational research projects.

Susan Banki studies the political, institutional, and social contexts that explain the roots of and solutions to human rights violations and social justice abuses. In particular, she is interested in the ways that questions of sovereignty, transnationalism, and citizenship/membership have shaped our responses to conflict and injustice, particularly examining institutions such as the international refugee regime, diasporas, and the humanitarian system. Susan's focus is in the Asia-Pacific region, where she has conducted extensive field research in Thailand, Myanmar/Burma, Cambodia, Nepal, Bangladesh and Japan on refugee/migrant protection, statelessness and border control. Her current projects include: the work of diasporas in responding to acute crises at home; humanitarian responses to complex displacement contexts; and the role of creative arts in transnational activism.

BA DipEd UoN PhD UQ GradCertSust Sydney

Honorary Associate Professor Ruth Barcan is the author of Academic Life and Labour in the New University: Hope and Other Choices (Ashgate, Dec. 2013); Complementary and Alternative Medicine: Bodies, Therapies, Senses (Berg, 2011), Nudity: A Cultural Anatomy (Berg 2004), and the co-editor of The Temporalities of Waste Out of Sight, Out of Time (Routledge 2021), Imagining Australian Space: Cultural Studies and Spatial Inquiry (UWA Press 1999) and Planet Diana: Cultural Studies and Global Mourning (Research Centre in Intercommunal Studies, UWS Nepean, 1997). She is the author of numerous articles in areas such as the body in culture, consumer culture, environmental Humanities, and pedagogy.

A/Prof Barnes is the Director of the Social Dynamics and Environmental Change Lab in the School of Life and Environmental Sciences. She is a social network scientist and interdsciplinary, environmental social scientist. Her work has a thematic focus on marine and coastal systems, where she draws on theories and methods from sociology and complex systems science to contribute a better understanding of how social dynamics and relationships between people and nature influence sustainability and resilience, particularly in the context of climate change. 

A/Prof Barnes has received number of significant national and international awards for her research on social dynamics and environmental change, including prestigious fellowships from the U.S. National Science Foundation (2015) and the Australian Research Council (DECRA, 2019), the Paul Bourke Award for Early Career Research from the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, and a Eureka Prize for Excellence in Interdisciplinary Scientific Research. She is committed to research impact and thus regularly works in collaborative, interdisciplinary teams and directly engages with policymakers and practitioners to work toward a sustainable future for both people and ecosystems. Her research has directly contributed to conservation strategies, environmental management reform, and the development of sustainability and adaptation initiatives; e.g. she served on the Expert Working Group that developed a National Strategy for Just Adaptation in Australia and was the sole Australian author on the Resilience Science Must-Knows Report, launched at COP30.

A/Prof Barnes is currently a Lead Author on the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) Second Global Assessment and a member of the Scientific Advisory Board for the Beijer Institute. She previosuly served on the board of the International Network for Social Network Analysis and was the president of the Australian Network for Social Network Analysis. A/Prof Barnes is an editor of Ecology and Society, serves on the editorial advisory board of Cell Reports Sustainability, and often serves as a guest editor for Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 

Professor Deborah Ascher Barnstone is professor and head of architecture at The University of Sydney.  She is both an architectural historian and a registered architect in North Rhine, Westfalia, Germany. She holds a B. A. degree cum laude with High Honors from Barnard College, Columbia University; M. Arch degree from Columbia University; and PhD from Delft University of Technology. She has held academic positions at University of Technology Sydney, Washington State University, Ball State University, Fachhochschule Cologne, and the Boston Architectural Center.

Barnstone's primary research interest is in 20th century early modern art, architecture, and culture.  She has a particular passion for dismantling historical myths by re-examining received histories in order to uncover alternate interpretations of the past.  Much of her research has focused on art and architecture in Germany during the interwar period because Germany was an important site of early modern innovation. Beyond the Bauhaus: Cultural Modernity in Breslau, 1918 - 1933 describes the largely forgotten but richly innovative cultural scene in the former German city of Breslau (Wroclaw today).  Studies of the influence of Weimar culture on early modernism have focused almost exclusively on Berlin and the Dessau Bauhaus but advances in Bresalu affected nearly every creative and intellectural field. The Break with the Past: Avant-Garde Architecture in Germany, 1910 - 1925 interrogates the myth that early modern practitioners dispelled with all aspects of traditional and historic aesthetics. The Color of Modernism: Paints, Pigments and the Transformation of Modern Architecture in 1920s Germany similarly unpacks, and disproves, the pervasive myth that early modern architecture was white.  Scholarly collections that she has edited deal with similar themes: Modernist Aesthetics in Transition: Visual Culture of the Weimar Republic and Nazi Germany argues for the complexity and shifting nature of aesthetics, rather than clear categories. Barnstone has recently begun work on Australian architecture of the interwar period.

As a registered architect and practiitioner, Barnstone also has a long-standing interest in sutainability in architectural design.  She still runs a small practice in Sydney working primarily on single-family homes and custom furniture.  She worked for German architect, Erich Schneider-Wessling, a pioneer in sustainable architecture. She has worked on projects looking at novel ways of recycling materials, designing with new sustainable materials like plastic wood composites, and experimenting with passive heating and cooling.

She is co-commissioning editor of the Visual Culture in German Contexts Series at Bloomsbury Academic, chair of the Modernism Collaborative in Australia and New Zealand, and Australian Representative to the International Union of Architects. 

I started my journey in science more than 30 years when I did a Bachelor of Science in Botany and Zoology at the University of Western Australia. I fell in love with plants so, as a PhD candidate, I specialised in plant nutrient acquisition and mycorrhizal symbioses of native Australian and introduced plant species. This was set against a backdrop of bushfire as an environmental disturbance of plant growth. At the time, the intersection of bushfire and plant productivity was only just being recognised in Australia, and I eagerly contributed to the growing body of knowledge.

At this point I went international. As a Postdoctoral Fellow at The University of Cape Town, South Africa, I investigated the responsiveness of native South African grasses, rushes, and shrubs to changed nutrient environments post-fire. Since then, I have researched the ecological effects of bushfires from a range of perspectives, particularly centered around the needs of fire agencies and land managers in Victoria and New South Wales.

I have authored multiple publications, including chapters in two pivotal books about bushfire in Australia (Flammable Australia: Fire Regimes, Biodiversity and Ecosystems in a Changing World, CSIRO Publishing, 2012 and Prescribed Burning in Australasia: The Science, Practice and Politics of Burning the Bush, Australasian Fire and Emergency Service Authorities, 2020).

A/Prof Kim Bell-Anderson is a teaching and research academic in the Charles Perkins Centre. Kim is course coordinator of NUTM3001 Introductory Nutrition and Metabolism and NUTM3888 Metabolic Cybernetics in the Nutrition Science major. Kim's research is in the area of nutritional physiology and focuses on determining the effects of dietary carbohydrate quality on cardiometabolic health.

Emanuela Benincasa joined the University of Sydney Business School as a Lecturer in Finance in 2025. Her research focuses on questions in banking and corporate finance, with topics primarily in environmental, social, and climate finance. She received her PhD in Finance from the Swiss Finance Institute and the University of Zurich. 

Dr Juliet Bennett is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Sydney Centre for Healthy Societies(SCHS), Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, and Charles Perkins Centre(CPC), at The University of Sydney. Juliet’s research draws connections across scales and subjects to activate co-creative and systemic interventions for personal and planetary wellbeing. She is currently working on SCHS and CPC’s joint research program on the social life of food and nourishment applying critical social theory to systems of food production and consumption.

Juliet’s doctoral research developed a new inroad to process philosophy and a tool for to assist in its application for sustainable futures. This thesis showed how nesting “static thinking” within “process thinking” connects relational worldviews, contextual economics, and participatory politics, which together help to mitigate the global systemic crisis (with global inequality and climate change its most urgent symptoms).

Juliet also has an MPhil and MA in peace and conflict studies, through which she explored structural violence with a focus on themes of narratives, religion and education. Juliet has taught undergraduate units in narratives and peace studies at Lenoir Rhyne University in North Carolina, and postgraduate units in peace and conflict studies at The University of Sydney.

Prior to joining SCHS, Juliet worked at Sydney Policy Lab as Collaborative Research Manager, applying community-led research and policymaking methods for improved social outcomes. Juliet also spent five years as Executive Officer and Acting Director of Sydney Peace Foundation organising the annual Sydney Peace Prize. These experiences have encouraged Juliet to connect traditional academic research with applied policy research, and communicate findings for diverse audiences.

MA PhD London, FAHA, FSA

I specialize in the archaeology of the lands along the Silk Roads from Western Asia to China. I have worked extensively in eastern Jordan, Karakalpakstan and Xinjiang and have a special interest in the study of nomadic peoples in mountains, deserts and steppes. My current research centres around the dispersal of early domesticated plants and animals across Asia from their centres of origin in the Middle East and China. I am exploring prehistoric economies and traditional agricultural practices along the southern rim of the Himalayas, a key crossroads for early cultural exchanges.

A note on my appointment: Edwin Cuthbert Hall (1874–1953) was an Australian physician and philanthropist who, through a generous bequest, endowed a Professorship at the University of Sydney in the subjects of Archaeology and Mythology in the Ancient Middle East.

Tom Bishop is the Academic Director of the Sydney Informatics Hub which is a Core Research Facility at the University of Sydney. He is a Professor in the School of Life & Environmental Science where his research interests are in modelling and predicting the variation of environmental properties in space and time with an emphasis on applying this to the domains of soil, agriculture and hydrology. His main teaching is related to applied statistics, environmental science and GIS. He is an Associate Editor for the European Journal of Soil Science and Soil Research and on the Editorial Board of Geoderma and Pedosphere. Prior to starting work at the University of Sydney in 2007 he held postdoctoral positions at the University of Florida in the USA, Rothamsted Research in the United Kingdom and the University of New South Wales. He completed his PhD in Precision Agriculture in 2002 at the University of Sydney.

Daniel Blinkhorn is a multi-international award winning composer, sound and digital media artist whose music gravitates around a synchronicity of frequency, texture, gesture, space, location and motion, all of which form (often metaphorical) frameworks within a given piece. Although often working in the electroacoustic, videophonic and ecoacoustic domains, Blinkhorn's output includes chamber, symphonic and wind orchestra works, sound installations, music for film, dance, radiophonic composition and various hybrid/ intermedia environments.

The piece 'red sound' from the frostbYte suite has been described as 'a true masterpiece, that captures and presents poetically the essence of human fascination with a timeless natural landscape' (International Computer Music Association Jury, 2013).

Blinkhorn's works are increasingly performed, exhibited and presented internationally, and his compositions have received over 40 international and national composition awards at prestigious compeitions.

He is the 2010 ABC Radio National Media Arts Fellow, and a 2011 Churchill Fellow, has worked in a wide variety of creative, academic, research and performative contexts, and has been a visiting scholar and artist at the University of Virginia, Music Department, the Conservatory of Music, University of Kansas City Missouri, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver and faculty member for 'Ecosono Alaska', a joint initiative between Ecosono Institute and Alaska Pacific University, Anchorage, Alaska.

Whilst entirely autodidactic in electroacoustic music and digital media, he has formally studied at a number of Australian universities including, COFA - UNSW and the University of Wollongong where his doctoral degree in composition was recommended for special commendation. Recent academic activities include completion of the 'Leading Teams' program administered by the University of Sydney Business School. Leading Teams - Digital Badge

More information about Blinkhorn, as well as samples of his work can be found at www.danielblinkhorn.com

Nienke Boer is Lecturer in World Literatures at the University of Sydney. Prior to joining USYD in January 2023, she was Assistant Professor of Humanities (Literature) at Yale-NUS College in Singapore. Her undergraduate and graduate degrees are in Comparative Literature.

Nienke’s research falls at the intersection of Ocean Studies and Global South Studies, where her focus is on the narratives produced by large-scale forced and coerced transoceanic migration. Her first book, The Briny South: Displacement and Sentiment in the Indian Ocean World (Duke UP, 2023), examines legal, literary, and autobiographical depictions of enslaved individuals, indentured labourers, and war prisoners displaced by the twin imperial drives of labour and war.