Her research focuses on environmental justice activism and issues of urban sustainability in the United States. More recently she has added environmental gentrification in New York City and the global struggle for climate justice to her areas of study. Her publications include Polluted Promises: Environmental Racism and the Search for Justice in a Southern Town (NYU Press, 2005), and the edited volume, Local Actions: Cultural Activism, Power and Public Life (with Maggie Fishman, Columbia University Press, 2004) in addition to a number of academic and journalistic articles.