Caroline is a researcher in the Department of Archaeology and History at La Trobe University. She is lead and co-investigator of several research projects with Traditional Owners, museums, universities, government agencies and industry, focusing on Indigenous cultural heritage in southeastern Australia, Papua New Guinea and South Africa. Caroline is Editor-in-chief of 'Excavations, Surveys and Heritage Management in Victoria', the peer-reviewed proceedings of the annual Victoria Archaeology Colloquium. She sits on the National Executive Committee for National Archaeology Week, and is an invited expert for the National Trust of Australia (Victoria) Register of Experts. Caroline has published extensively in several peer-reviewed journals and edited volumes, including The Holocene, Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, and Australian Archaeology. Her research has been funded by the Australian Government, the Foundation for National Parks and Wildlife, and government agencies.

A key focus of Caroline's research is the information that stone artefacts can convey about people's lives in the deep and recent past. This includes the interplay between debris left behind by a single stone knapper and the activity traces of a technological system extending across a landscape. She specialises in piecing back together stone artefacts that were struck from the same piece of rock to understand stone-working techniques and how post-depositional processes have affected archaeological sites. Caroline also use portable X-Ray Fluorescence (pXRF) to investigate people's mobility and trade/exchange networks in the past.

Caroline has considerable private industry experience as a qualified Heritage Advisor under the Aboriginal Heritage Act 2006, undertaking cultural heritage assessments and providing expert advice on Aboriginal stone artefacts.