In 2016 she spoke at the 2016 United Nations Climate Change Conference. She is interested in the ethical challenges of mining the deep sea for metals. She was part of the 2018 World Economic Forum, speaking about the dangers of mining the deep sea bed. She holds the Elizabeth Hamman and Morgan Dene Oliver Chair in Marine Biodiversity and Conservation Science. She was awarded the Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography (ASLO) A.C. Redfield Lifetime Achievement Award in 2018. She has published over 230 papers that have been cited more than 20,000 times.