Nicola Macaulay

I am a PhD Candidate and an AFHEA-accredited and experienced Senior Tutor with the Centre for Defence and Security Studies, Massey University. My roles include postgraduate supervision, postgraduate marking and undergraduate course coordination with a current focus on border security. Coming to Massey as a former security practitioner of 12 years involved in UK Signals Intelligence experience, key areas of interest lie in International Relations, Intelligence and Urban Security and the implications of those from domestic, regional and global perspectives.

My current PhD research traces the urban trajectories of CCTV from 1960 to the present. Using Wellington, New Zealand as a case study, I am examining the intersections of socio‑material realities and surveillance infrastructures to advance understanding of how actors, technological innovation, and critical events can shape the evolution of urban CCTV and, in turn, how those dynamics can influence socio‑material contexts and approaches to urban security.

As part of this work, I examine the surveillance trajectories of remotely piloted aircraft systems (RPAS, or drones). This leads into a second area of research interest that explores the intersections between urban aerospace surveillance technologies (air and space) and global geopolitics, particularly in ways that the deployment and regulation of RPAS and satellite‑based systems both reflect and reshape geopolitical power relations, security discourses, and international governance frameworks.

Building on these themes, I also maintain an academic interest in New Zealand’s geopolitical and strategic positioning in the Pacific region. Of current interest is an emerging alignment between AUKUS Pillar II technology specifications and the procurement of aligned advanced technologies that the New Zealand government is currently procuring.