Black was educated at Wesley College and the University of Melbourne, where he resided at Ormond College and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in politics and economics and a Bachelor of Laws with honours in 1994. He won a Rhodes Scholarship in 1991, and obtained a Diploma of Theology and Master of Philosophy in Ethics and Theology in 1994 from Keble College, Oxford.[3] He was awarded a Doctor of Philosophy in Ethics and Theology from Magdalen College, Oxford in 1996. His DPhil thesis was entitled "Towards an Ecumenical Ethic: Reconciling the Work of Stanley Hauerwas, Germain Grisez and Oliver O'Donovan".
He became Vice Chancellor of the University of Tasmania in 2018.
see also Lion 1991 p 7 for an article on Rufus being awarded the Rhodes scholarship, with his father Chief Justice Michael Black
