Dr Thornton gained a PhD in Public International Law from the College of Law at the Australian National University (ANU) in 2014. Her research concerns legal and policy pespectives in the area of human migration and displacment resulting from anthropogenic climate change. With her research collaborators, she has been awarded funding by the Australian Research Council and the National Geographic Society to work on issues connected to this. Dr Thornton published a book on the topic of climate change, human migration/displacement and international law with Oxford University Press in 2018. She works with international organisations including the International Organisation for Migration and the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific. Dr Thornton teaches in the areas of Public International Law, Human Rights Law, Legal Theory, Legal Systems, and Law Foundations.