Expert Bio

Marisol Maddox is the Sandia Arctic Scholar at the Polar Institute of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. She is a Senior Arctic Fellow at the Institute of Arctic Studies in the Dickey Center at Dartmouth and a Non-Resident Research Fellow at the Center for Climate and Security.

Her transdisciplinary research considers the Arctic nexus of climate change, security, and geopolitics. She is particularly interested in how actorless threats— such as the surpassing of planetary boundaries-- converge and interface with conventional security challenges and strategic thinking, as well as place-based resilience.  

Ms. Maddox is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She provides support for the operationalization of science through advanced tech tools tailored for the Arctic with PolArctic LLC. She regularly teaches about the Arctic at the Ted Stevens Center for Arctic Security Studies, the Foreign Service Institute, the Canada School of Public Service, and the Geneva Centre for Security Policy, among other institutions.  

Ms. Maddox previously contributed Arctic expertise through work with the European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats and the Newport Arctic Scholars Initiative of the U.S. Naval War College. She taught a graduate level course on Environmental Security as an adjunct professor at Syracuse University's Maxwell School. She frequently publishes and speaks on Arctic security, climate change, and geopolitics. Her commentary has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Bloomberg, Business Insider, BBC, and Science, among other outlets.

Ms. Maddox holds an M.A. in International Security with a concentration in Transnational Challenges from George Mason University’s Schar School. She holds a B.A. in Environmental Studies with a concentration in Ecosystems from Binghamton University.