Marigold Black is a non-resident fellow at RAND Australia. She has expertise in conceptions of sovereignty in historical and contemporary perspective, the origins of international law, and strategic‑level defence and national security questions. Black is also an adjunct fellow with the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of New South Wales.
At RAND, Black has conducted research on topics including strategies for integrating robotics and autonomous systems into the Royal Australian Navy; contestation of ideas within the Australian Army; emerging trends in insider threat; governance issues in Antarctica and outer space; countering violent extremism online; countering foreign interference; Chinese military deterrence signaling; defence mobilisation planning; future cyber‑threat landscapes; and sovereign capability in the context of national sovereign outcomes.
Before joining RAND, Black was the director of a private company that conducted specialist research for clients in the Australian defence and national security sectors. She has also been a strategic policy and futures research fellow at the Australian Army Research Centre and the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at the Australian National University, and a research fellow with the Laureate Research Program in International History at the University of Sydney.
Black earned her Ph.D. in history from the University of Sydney, where she explored the pre‑history of the U.S. Constitution, specifically how the idea of sovereignty was understood prior to and during the American Revolution.
Ph.D. in history, University of Sydney; B.A. (Hons) in history, University of Sydney; B.A. in history, political science, University of Newcastle
