Professor Harding is an experienced not-for-profit Board Director and higher education Senior Executive. Current appointments include Chair of the Australian National Imaging Facility (NCRIS); non-Executive Director at SmartSat CRC Ltd; Chair of the Research Advisory Committee at James Martin Public Policy Institute; Professor Emeritus at the Australian National University; and Managing Director of Margaret Harding Consulting. She holds BSc (Hons), PhD and DSc degrees in chemistry from the University of Sydney.
Professor Harding has held multiple senior Executive roles in higher education, most recently serving as Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research and Innovation) at the Australian National University. She served as the inaugural Chair of NSW Circular (a NSW Government Innovation Network), has been a Director on the Boards of ANU Enterprise Pty Ltd, Australian Scientific Instruments Pty Ltd, Neuroscience Research Australia Pty Ltd, Bionic Vision Australia Pty Ltd (Alternate Director) and has been a member of the Governing Boards of the National Computational Infrastructure (NCRIS), the National Centre for Indigenous Genomics and the Australia Indonesia Centre. She was Chair of the Australian Giant Magellan Telescope Committee and has been a member of the ARC Advisory Council and ARC College of Experts.