Kuntala Lahiri-Dutt is a Professor at the Crawford School of Public Policy, ANU College of Asia and the Pacific, The Australian National University. Kuntala’s interdisciplinary research is on the interesting dynamics, conflicts and coexistence that occur at the interface of the environment and natural resources, and ordinary people’s daily lives in developing countries. Here she puts particular attention to the precarious and gendered livelihoods in environmental resource dependent communities.

Her research projects were carried out primarily in Asia. She has studied the impacts of mining on women in Eastern Kalimantan, Indonesia, and ran a 'Linkage' project to explore how these impacts could be addressed. She has also carried out research into artisanal gold and diamond mining in Indonesia, and published on these topics in South East Asia Research as well as Extractive Industries and Society journals.

Most recently, she was the Senior Advisor to the World Bank's 'Managing gendered impacts of COVID-19 in artisanal and small-scale gold mining communities' project.