India is a specialist in the analysis of macrobotanical remains (seeds, nuts, fruits, and other floristic elements) to provide insights into people’s diet and ecological relationships in the past in association with other cultural materials excavated from stratified archaeological contexts. Broadly, her research interests include Indigenous Australian and Island South East Asian archaeology and archaeobotany, diet and subsistence, human evolution and migration in tropical rainforest environments, traditional ecological knowledge, and ethnobotany.

India’s current project ‘Human evolution and ecological knowledge: investigating the role of people-plant relationships in human adaptation and migration in tropical rainforests’ reviews how ecological knowledge of rainforest plants may have been a significant factor facilitating the migration of humans from Sunda to Sahul 65,000 years ago. Analysis of archaeobotanical records left by human populations have the potential to tell us about people-plant relationships and to provide novel insight into human responses and adaptations to changing climate and environment in the past—having significant implications for present-day rainforest conservation and management.