Ana Paula Pimentel Walker's global work focuses on grassroots-driven neighborhood improvements and community wellbeing, especially in the areas of precarious housing and refugee resettlement, specifically in Latin America and the US. She also investigates how disenfranchised communities engage with urban and health governance and evaluates the significance of participatory institutions in planning socially and environmentally just cities. Her research aims to amplify the voices of informal dwellers, migrants, and ethnic minorities in the planning process, while co-producing strategies that defy inequalities and institutional racism. Her research interests in health equity align with the Center's themes of empowering women and social and environmental determinants of health.