S​utawan has been working as a researcher since she received her master’s degree in international development at Chulalongkorn University in Thailand in 2013. She independently does research on the issues of human rights and criminal justice for various organizations. She joined Duncan McCargo as his research assistant ​in 2014 before being introduced to the Global FoE & I Jurisprudence Project in mid 2015. Her work for the Global FoE & I Jurisprudence Project is on the issues in Southeast Asia.