Rhonda Quinn studies the interaction of modern and extinct humans with the environment. Her primary research focuses on reconstructing selective pressures of Plio-Pleistocene hominin evolution in eastern Africa. She integrates stable isotopic systems with sedimentology and stratigraphy to elucidate hominin adaptations to environmental and climatic change. Quinn also examines resource use and mobility of anatomically modern human groups in coastal and island settings, employing bioarchaeology, zooarchaeology and stable isotopic analysis. She has conducted fieldwork in the Turkana Basin of northern Kenya, along the Solo River of Java, on Pacific Islands, in the Yucatan Peninsula and in her own backyard, Florida.