Margarita Konaev was a nonresident senior fellow in the Forward Defense practice of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. Additionally, she serves as deputy director of analysis and research fellow at Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET) with interests in military applications of artificial intelligence and in Russian military innovation. She is also an adjunct senior fellow with the Center for a New American Security. Previously, she was a non-resident fellow with the Modern War Institute at West Point, a post-doctoral fellow at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, and a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perry World House. Before joining CSET, she worked as a senior principal in the Marketing and Communications practice at Gartner.

Konaev’s research on international security, armed conflict, non-state actors and urban warfare in the Middle East, Russia, and Eurasia has been published by the Journal of Strategic Studies, the Journal of Global Security Studies, Conflict Management and Peace Science, the French Institute of International Relations, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Lawfare, War on the Rocks, Modern War Institute, Foreign Policy Research Institute, and a range of other outlets and organizations. She holds a PhD in political science from the University of Notre Dame, an MA in conflict resolution from Georgetown University, and a BA from Brandeis University.