She is a research fellow at the Development Policy Centre of the Australian National University and publishes extensively on matters relating to Papua New Guinea (PNG) and the Pacific islands.
[2] After obtaining her master's, Rooney had various jobs, including with the United Nations Development Programme and with the World Bank, in PNG's capital, Port Moresby.
Her PhD research examined migrants living in Port Moresby, using an interdisciplinary approach including anthropology, human geography and ethnography.
In Lorengau she examined the impact of Australia's offshore immigrant detention centre; in Port Moresby she has looked at migrant settlement communities, and in Lae she has researched family and sexual violence.
[3] Rooney is a prolific writer, both for academic journals and for broader circulation, such as on the Development Policy Centre website,[4] in the Griffith Review,[1] in Islands Business, and in The Independent.