She worked as a postdoc, starting in 2008, at Stanford on food security and the environment. She was named a National Geographic Emerging Explorer in 2011. As a current research affiliate at the University of California, San Diego 's Policy Design and Evaluation Laboratory, her research focuses mainly on global food security, adaptation, and climate change mitigation. Some projects she has worked on include rural electrification, aerosol emissions, and high-yield farming.