She is part of a network of Canadian researchers examining issues pertaining to housing, homelessness, and health, and is the site principal investigator for the Health and Housing in Transition Study (HHiT), which is a Canadian Institutes of Health Research-funded, longitudinal study of 400 homeless and vulnerably housed persons in Vancouver, Toronto, and Ottawa.

Five years of data collection was completed in February 2014. She has been the UBC Department of Medicine Clinical Investigator Program Director since 2004.

As an Internal Medicine specialist at St. Paul’s Hospital, Dr. Palepu is active in teaching residents and medical students in both the inpatient and clinic setting. She was actively involved with the launch of an independent, open-access general medical journal Open Medicine and served as the Editor from 2007–2014. She has been an Associate Editor with the Annals of Internal Medicine since 2010. She was the President of the International Society of Urban Health in 2008 and is a former Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research Scholar.