At Ryerson University in Toronto, Lister is Associate Professor and Graduate Director of Urban + Regional Planning. She is currently Visiting Professor of Landscape Architecture at the University of Toronto, Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape + Design. From 2009-2013, she was was Visiting Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture at Harvard University, Graduate School of Design. In 2012, Lister was named Senior Scholar with the Centre for Humans and Nature.

She is co-editor of Projective Ecologies (with Chris Reed, Harvard GSD and ACTAR Press, 2014) and theThe Ecosystem Approach: Complexity, Uncertainty, and Managing for Sustainability (with David Waltner-Toews and the late James Kay, Columbia University Press, 2008), and author of more than 30 professional practice and scholarly publications. These include contributions to Ecological Urbanism (Harvard GSD with Lars Müller Publishers 2010) and Large Parks (Princeton Architectural Press 2008, winner of the J.B. Jackson Book Prize).

Her work has been featured in several planning and design exhibitions, including the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montréal, the Chicago Architecture Foundation, the Toronto Design Exchange, and the Van Alen Institute in New York. Lister served as the Professional Advisor for the 2010 ARC International Wildlife Crossing Infrastructure Design Competition, which developed the concept designs for a wildlife bridge to be built at the Vail Pass in Colorado.

See more at Academia.edu and plandform.