Chandni Singh works at the interface of climate change adaptation, livelihood transformations, and rural and urban development. Her expertise spans assessing differential vulnerability to climate change, barriers and enablers to climate change adaptation, migration and displacement, and gender, with a regional focus on South Asia and increasingly, sub-Saharan Africa. Chandni is amongst the top 10 most cited adaptation researchers in India and top 50 globally.

Chandni is a Lead Author for the IPCC Special Report on Climate Change and Cities (2025–2027), IPCC Sixth Assessment Report on ‘Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability’ (2019–2022), and Contributing Author for the IPCC Special Report on 1.5°C (2016–2018). She is also a Coordinating Lead Author for the UNEP Adaptation Gap Report Series. She is a Scientific Committee Member on Loss and Damage for the World Adaptation Science Program (WASP). Chandni serves on the editorial boards of WIREs Climate Change, Dialogues on Climate Change, Regional Environmental Change, Climate and Development, and IIHS’ in-house journal Urbanisation.

At IIHS, Chandni leads interdisciplinary, international projects such as FCDO-funded Climate Change Local Adaptation Pathways (CLAPs), IIED-funded Long-Term Impacts of Humanitarian Action in Chennai (2016–2017), British Academy-funded Recovery with Dignity (2018–2021), and Urban and Peri-urban Agriculture as Green Infrastructure (2019–2022). In 2024, Chandni was one of the seven inaugural Maitri Fellows of the Centre for Australia–India Relations, and based at the Climate Adaptation Lab, La Trobe University, Melbourne.

She has previously worked in research and practice-based organisations such as the University of Reading (UK), Bioversity International (Italy), Pragya, and WWF India, and has taught postgraduate-level courses on climate change adaptation, sustainability, research methodology, and development studies. She is also interested in science communication for lay audiences and is a published poet.