Her research interests include: social policy, particularly welfare reform; indigenous affairs policy, refugee policy and adaptation, public attitudes towards social citizenship, citizenship and national identity. She is part of an ARC Discovery Project (2018-2021) comparing income management in Australia and New Zealand and has recently written on this topic in Critical Social Policy (2016), as well as widely on aspects of New Zealand social policy including the punitive, behaviourial modifications favoured by the previous National-led government (2008-2017).