Before taking up her post at Western Sydney University in 2010, she held an RCUK Academic Fellowship in the areas of History and Heritage at Keele University. Her research explores the interface between heritage, identity, memory and affect, and critically analyses public policy, especially those tackling social inclusion, multiculturalism and expressions of national identity. Together, these interests challenge dominant conceptualisations of heritage found in policy, which tend to privilege the cultural symbols of a particular social group. In particular, her work attempts to illustrate how and why, despite attempts to mitigate instances of exclusion, recent policies continue to lean towards the predictable melding of cultural diversity with tendencies of assimilation.