She is a Professor Emerita in the School of Culture, History and Language, College of Asia and the Pacific, the Australian National University.

Her research focuses on Japan's frontiers and minority communities and on questions of historical memory in East Asia.

She is the author of Exodus to North Korea: Shadows from Japan's Cold War.

Two of her books are To the Diamond Mountains: A Hundred Year Journey Through China and Korea, and Borderline Japan: Foreigners and Frontier Controls in the Post-war Era.

In 2024 she published a biography of Monte Punshon who "came out", joined MENSA and gained a medal from Japan after the age of 100.