Marigold is a professional researcher, an intellectual historian, and a geopolitical strategist. She is the research director of Norfolk Advisory. Her main research and publication areas are defence, national security, sovereignty, applied philosophy, and international history.
Marigold was educated at the University of Newcastle and obtained her doctorate from the University of Sydney. Her research focus was on conceptions of international law and sovereignty in the era of the American Declaration of Independence. She is currently studying law through the University of Sydney.
Marigold was a research fellow with the Laureate Research Program in International History at the University of Sydney. Her major contribution there was in examining the history of how economics and politics intersected in the early nineteenth century to shape the modern world.
Marigold was also a research fellow with the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at the Australian National University. While there, she was seconded to the Australian Army Research Centre, where she worked amongst other things on the Future Force Concept and the development of the Army’s intellectual capabilities.
Marigold was more recently a specialist policy researcher with the RAND Corporation, where she conducted research and policy work including for Australia’s Defence Force and the Departments of Defence, Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Home Affairs. Some of her RAND publications are here.
Marigold’s research and policy work over the past ten years has traversed a wide range of themes and topics in areas of defence, economics and resources, ethics, geopolitics, government, history, international law, national security, and science and technology. Specific topics include:
- intellectual history of the United States’ Department of State
- contemporary and historical concepts of sovereignty
- freedom of the seas and the world economy
- the dynamics of civil-military relations
- sovereign capability
- the defence mobilisation of Australia
- geopolitics and strategic position
- Antarctic and space governance
- countering foreign interference and violent extremism
- innovation in human-machine teaming in the robotics, autonomous systems, and artificial intelligence domains
- AUKUS Pillar Two as a scientific endeavour
Marigold’s experience and skills provide clients with analytical and research expertise, historical and theoretical perspectives, and cross-discipline knowledge. She provides the conceptual and rational framework for understanding problems and different ways for clients to solve them.