Dara Conduit is Associate Research Fellow in the Middle East Studies Forum at the Alfred Deakin Institute, Deakin University, Victoria. She was a Visiting Scholar at the University of Cambridge, is a board member of the Syrian Studies Association and has provided advice to the UN OHCHR's Working Group on Mercenaries. Author of articles in The Middle East Journal, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism and Journal of Contemporary China, she gained her M.Litt. from the University of St Andrews, Scotland, and her Ph.D. from Monash University where her thesis was a finalist for the Terrorism Research Institute's annual thesis award.