My research lies in the field of marine human-habitat interactions, and artisanal fishery communities and resource management, especially along west Malaysian coastlines and in seagrass ecosystems. I also study Malaysian rural and ethnic politics, (un)sustainable development and issues pertaining to the Johor-Singapore borderlands. Trained as a conservation scientist, my practice is in community empowerment through citizen science and inclusive development, as well as environmental education for marine habitat conservation. I've written on the ethnography of Malaysian women and Islamic radicalisation, issues of poverty in Malaysia, and Sabah’s oil palm industry. These are all tributaries of my overarching fascination with Malaysian rural communities. 

I began working for local communities at in New Delhi, India, at 10 yrs old and have not stopped since. In 2008, I co-founded Kelab Alami, a community organisation that works to ensure that the fishermen of Mukim Tg Kupang, Johor, Malaysia to participate in and benefit from urbanisation through environmental education, citizen science and community ecotourism. This work has earned the organisation and the community recognition by the state government, state and federal agencies, and local businesses. Thanks to this long term immersion with the fishermen, I was granted the Iskandar Malaysia Social Hero Award for Environmental Protection (Individual) in 2014, while Kelab Alami won the organisational version of the same award in 2016. I am also the Malaysian Ambassador for Citizen Science Asia and was highlighted as a Channel News Asia Climate Warrior in 2021.

I currently teach Environmental Politics of Southeast Asia (at the MA level) and undergraduate classes on Singapore and Southeast Asia's connections to the sea, as well as topics on the intersection between religion, magic and society. I've also taught undergraduate classes on Malaysian Politics and the Politics of Southeast Asia under the Department of Political Science at NUS. I am also an Associate Fellow at the Malaysian Studies Programme, ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute. I was a full-time Visiting Fellow at ISEAS between 2016 and 2022, and before that, a Research Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), NTU. Before returning to Singapore in  2015, I was the Director of the University Malaya Centre for Community Engagement and Sustainability (UMCARES) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Myr PhD in Science was from Universiti Teknologi Mara, Shah Alam, Malaysia, on community empowerment and education for habitat conservation and my Masters in Applied Linguistics was from the University of Wales, Cardiff, specialising in orientalism in colonial imagery.