Professor Winders’ research focuses on four themes: (1) the design, regulation, and social impacts of emerging technologies, especially autonomous systems and artificial intelligence, (2) international migration and the politics of belonging, (3) racial formations and dynamics, and (4) the politics of social reproduction. Her interests and expertise in autonomous systems include questions related to data ethics, ownership, and governance; impacts on marginalized communities and the built environment; the future of work; and public perception/acceptance.

Trained as an urban geographer, Winders has devoted her career to finding ways to cross methodological and disciplinary lines in her own scholarship and to linking insights from academic scholarship to wider policy and advocacy conversations. Her work is interdisciplinary and draws on a range of methods, including oral histories, archival work, discourse analysis, interviews, and life and work histories.

She also has interests in historical geography and the role of postcolonial theory in thinking about human geographies more broadly and frequently writes about critical pedagogy and digital geographies. In all her work, Professor Winders situates her research at the intersection of academia, policy, and advocacy.

Winders also serves as the Editor-in-Chief of the , the flagship journal in migration studies, and Associate Editor of . She received her Ph.D. from the University of Kentucky.