Van de Flierdt is interested in the marine-terminating sector of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet during past warm periods.[1] Her research looks to develop new geochemical and isotopic tracers in marine geochemistry, paleoceanography and paleoclimate, with particular focus on radiogenic isotopes.[4] She is co-lead of the MAGIC Isotope group in the Department of Earth Sciences at Imperial College London.[5] She is also a research at the Lamont–Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University.[6][7]
She is part of the international Geotraces program.[8] Part of the Geotraces program is to ensure results for trace elements and isotopes collected on different cruises by different laboratories can be compared in a meaningful way.[9] Van de Flierdt is building a global database of neodymium in the oceans and researching the implications for paleoceanography research.[4]
In 2012, she won a Leverhulme Trust grant to research deep sea corals.[10] She was part of the Natural Environment Research Council project SWEET, Super-Warm Early Eocene Temperatures and climate.[11] She has led several major NERC grants, totalling well over a £1,000,000 as principal investigator.[12] Van de Flierdt is a member of the Royal Society's International Exchange Committee.[2] She is an editor of Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta.[13] She has appeared on the podcast Forecast: Climate Conversations.[14]
