She received the J H Michell Medal in 2000 and her major contributions include research predicting the response of extraterrestrial soil to attempts to build, mine, or drill and a model that can identify the location and time of future landslides or earthquakes by analyzing slope stability changes.
[7][8] Tordesillas, in collaboration with NASA, led a team studying the soil of Mars and the moon with the aim of understanding how their surfaces would respond to attempts to build, mine, or drill.
[9] To tackle the project, Tordesillas and her team at the University of Melbourne used data about extraterrestrial soil and photos collected by orbiters and rovers in conjunction with a study of granule dynamics.
[12] Tordesillas and her team developed a software tool using applied mathematics and big data analytics to predict the time and location of landslides up to two weeks in advance.
[14][13] This effort culminated after five years of work when Tordesillas and Robin Batterham developed, tested, and patented the Spatiotemporal Slope Stability Analytics for Failure Estimate (SSAFE) model.
[16] It can also monitor rural areas where satellites collect radar data every few days or weeks, but its ultimate goal is improving early warning systems and mitigating the dangers of landslides in the context of climate change.
[16] On July 13, 2012, Tordesillas filed a patent application with Peter Joseph Scales, Anthony Dirk Stickland, Robin John Battheram, and the University of Melbourne for the comminution and/or removal of liquid from a material.