Lesley introduced interdisciplinary teaching approaches to Geography and Japanese through a School of Excellence Programme in the Education Department of South West Victoria. She is a recipient of several Japanese study grants and scholarships, the most recent being the Japan Foundation's Grant for the Study of Classical Japanese, offered over four years. She was the only geographer in Australia to attend the 2005 Student World Tourism Summit, where she presented the Mission Statement to over 400 participants including then Prime Minister Juunichiro Koizumi. Her research focus is on rural-coastal tourism and development, rural-regional communities and fisheries cooperative associations (FCAs) roles in Japanese international fishing.