Iain MacGillivray is a full researcher at RAND Australia, specializing in defence and national security research. With more than fourteen years of experience in Australia and internationally, MacGillivray’s work spans government, think tanks, and academia. His research focuses on land power and military strategy, geopolitics and geostrategy, U.S. politics and security, and complex international issues in the Indo‑Pacific, Middle East, Turkish politics, and Australian foreign policy.
Previously, MacGillivray served in the Chief of Army’s Initiatives Group within the Australian Army, where he was the chief of the Australian Army’s personal researcher and deputy speechwriter. He also worked as a UK and U.S. adviser in the international division at the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and was a founding member of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C. (ASPI DC), the first Australian think tank in the United States. He participated as an Australian delegate in the 2025 German Marshall Fund U.S./Sasakawa Peace Foundation Young Strategists Forum in Tokyo. During the 2021–22 academic year, he was a Yale Fox International Fellow at Yale University and has conducted academic research and teaching at the University of Melbourne.
MacGillivray earned his Ph.D. in international relations from the University of Melbourne in Melbourne, Australia.
Ph.D. in international relations, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia; MSc in Middle East Studies, Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey; MIR in international relations, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia; B.A. in arts (history), University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia
Turkish
