Professor Hendriks' work examines the democratic aspects of contemporary governance, particularly with respect to participation, deliberation, inclusion and representation. She has taught and published widely on the application and politics of inclusive and deliberative forms of citizen engagement. Her recent work is exploring alternative modes of political participation, particularly those enabled by online and offline spaces of political contestation. With a background in both political science and environmental engineering, Carolyn has a particular interest in the governance of the environment, as well as science and technology issues. Carolyn teaches graduate courses in the Masters of Public Policy.

Carolyn is currently working on an ARC Discovery project (together with Prof John Dryzek, Dr Selen Ercan, A/Prof Paul Fawcett and Dr Michael Jensen) which is exploring how the ever-increasing volume of political communication (especially online) challenges democracy and effective policy making. For empirical insights she is examining the nature and form of public deliberation surrounding the Narrabri coal seam gas controversy in Australia.