Director
Professor Kristen Harkness is based in the School of International Relations at the University of St. Andrews and has served as the Director of ISWS since 2022. From 2023-24, she held an ESRC funded fellowship as the Thematic Research Lead for International Affairs and National Security with the UK Parliament where she worked extensively on issues such as the Russia-Ukraine war, Arctic security, AI and defense weaponry, and economic security. She is the author of When Soldiers Rebel (Cambridge UP, 2018) and her research has been published in journals such as International Affairs, the Journal of Conflict Resolution, the Journal of Peace Research, and the Journal of Strategic Studies.
Deputy Director
Dr. Diana Lemberg is a Lecturer in the School of History. She is a historian of the United States in the world in the 20th century, with a particular focus on how ideas and culture shaped U.S. foreign relations and vice versa. Her current research examines federal and foundation investments in language training since the 1940s, framing American globalism as a linguistic as well as a strategic challenge.
Affiliated Faculty
Professor Ali Ansari (History): Ali Ansari’s research interests include nationalism, historiography and the development of the Iranian state since the 19th Century with particular reference to its relations with the West.
Dr. Adam Bower (International Relations): Adam Bower was the founding co-director of the Centre for Global Law and Governance and continues to sit on the Steering Committee of the Institute for Legal and Constitutional Research. His research examines the development, implementation, and transformation of international law and norms regulating the use of armed violence.
Dr. Jonathan Coulston (Classics): Jonathan Coulston’s research revolves around the study of Ancient Rome. Some of his research interests include the Roman military, Roman art and architecture, Roman provincial archaeology, and ancient warfare.
Dr. Marc DeVore (International Relations): Marc De Vore researches the political economy of defense industries and collaboration. He has further research interests in military innovation, economic sanctions, and conventional warfare. He has held a multiyear fellowship with the UK Foreign Office and advised South Korea, Switzerland, and the Central African Republic on defense policy making.
Professor Rick Fawn (International Relations): Rick Fawn is the author or editor of 15 books and has conducted extensive on-ground work across Central, Southern and Eastern Europe, and the Caucasus and Central Asia, including in conflict zones. He engages regularly with governments, international organizations, and international NGOs, has authored commission policy reports, and gives frequent briefings and keynote addresses internationally.
Dr. Aimée Fox (International Relations): Aimée Fox’s research centres on the experience and conduct of war in the twentieth century. A historian of the British military, one of her main research interests is how military organisations innovate and change in historic and contemporary contexts. Her current research project explores the role of gossip as a form of military knowledge, and its relationship to organisational learning, sense-making, and affect in armed forces. She is the co-editor and co-founder of the ‘War and the British Empire’ series with McGill-Queen’s University Press.
Professor Stephen Gethins (International Relations): Stephen Gethins is currently the Member of Parliament for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry. He previously served as the SNP spokesperson on Europe and International Affairs and served on the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee from 2015 to 2019. Before his time in Parliament, he was a Special Adviser to Scotland’s First Minister focusing on issues such as International and EU affairs as well as Energy and Climate Change.
Dr. Andrea Gilli (International Relations): Andrea Gilli’s research focuses on technological change and military innovation. His work has been published in some of the most prominent academic journals focusing on security matters, such as International Security, Security Studies, and Journals of Strategic Studies. He has previously acted as a consultant for important security and defence organisations.
Dr. Catherine Jones (International Relations): Catherine Jones’ research centers on issues of security and development in East Asia. Her current research relates to the nexus between security and development in East Asia, the role of East Asian states within international institutions, and the security challenges presented by North Korea.
Dr. Alice König (Classics): Alice Konig is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Classics. Her research focuses on intellectual history and the history of science, intertextuality, socio-literary and cross-cultural interactions, and battle narratives and the representation of war. Along with her colleague Nicolas Wiater, she recently founded a podcast, Visualising War. The podcast aims to explore how war stories work and especially what they do to us.
Dr. Jaremey McMullin (International Relations): Jaremey McMullin is a Senior Lecturer in the School of International Relations. His main research interest areas include the disarmament, demobilisation, and reintegration (DDR) of ex-combatants and the politics of veterans’ return from war. He is currently researching the process of youth peacebuilding through a multi-year project, ‘Motorcycling as Peacebuilding in Liberia, which analyses the peacebuilding impacts and challenges of the commercial motorcycling sector in Liberia.
Dr. Luke Middup (International Relations): Luke Middup is a Lecturer in the School of International Relations. His research is focused on US foreign policy after 1945 with an emphasis on civil-military relations in the post-Vietnam area. He also teaches modules on the history of conventional and unconventional warfare.
Professor Phillips O’Brien (International Relations): Phillips O’Brien is a Professor of Strategic Studies as well as the Head of the School of International Relations. His research has focused on a wide range of topics including naval policy and American politics and political history. In 2015, he published his book How the War Was Won: Air-Sea Power and Allied Victory in World War II. In 2019, he published The Second Most Powerful Man in the World: The Life of Admiral William D. Leahy. He has written for various publications, most recently his work for The Atlantic, which has focused on the Russo-Ukrainian War.
Dr. Norma Rossi (International Relations): Norma Rossi is an Associate Lecturer in the School of International Relations. Her research lies at the intersection of Critical Security/War Studies, International Political Sociology, and Postcolonialism, and explores the relationship between political authority and identity: how does power shape who we are? She has delivered International Conflict Management courses to civilian and security officials in North Africa, the Middle East, South America, the Balkans, and the Caucasus.
Professor Guy Rowlands (History): Guy Rowlands’ principal research interests lie in the history of war between the 15th and early 19th centuries, especially the armed forces, social elites, armaments manufacture, and financial systems associated with the state during this period. His primary focus has been upon France, the greatest power of the age, during the personal rule of Louis XIV (1661-1715) and the regency of Louis XV (1715-23). He is currently working on a book on the power and organisation of artillery in the age of Louis XIV.
Professor Sibylle Scheipers (International Relations): Sibylle’s field of expertise is strategic theory, irregular warfare, colonial wars and the law of armed conflict. She completed her PhD at Humboldt University Berlin. Before joining St Andrews in 2011, she held positions at the Changing Character of War programme at the University of Oxford and at Chatham House. Her most recent monograph entitled On Small War: Carl von Clausewitz and People’s War was published with Oxford University Press in 2018. At present she is working on a biography of Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, the Imperial German officer to commanded the Schutztruppe for German East Africa during the First World War.
Professor Sir Hew Strachan (International Relations): Sir Hew Strachan is a Bishop Wardlaw Professor in the School of International Relations. He is a historian of the British military, and has received acclaim for his work on the British Army and the History of WWI. His work in 2004, The First World War, was turned into a multi-part documentary for Channel 4 of the same name. He is the editor of the Great Battles Series published by Oxford University Press.
Dr. Henning Tamm (International Relations): Henning Tamm is a Senior Lecturer in the School of International Relations. One of his main research interests concerns state support for rebel groups. He has conducted research on this matter in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Rwanda, and Uganda. His other primary research interest concerns rebel group fragmentation.
Dr. Mathilde von Bulow (International Relations): Mathilde von Bulow is the Director of Teaching and a Lecturer in the School of International Relations. She is a trained historian whose focus lies in the history of international relations. Her research focuses largely on the foreign relations of Germany, France, and Algeria. Her focus lies largely in the era of the Cold War and of decolonisation. Her research focuses on various themes including insurgency and counterinsurgency warfare, colonial governance, humanitarianism and development, and diplomacy.
Professor Andrew Williams (International Relations): Andrew Williams is an Emeritus Professor in the School of International Relations. His research interests include the ways in which France has related to the ‘Anglo-Saxon’ powers since 1900, the relationship between the study of international relations and the study of international history, the evolution of the global order in the past century, the ways in which the international community has developed methods of dealing with the aftermath of major wars, and the culture and practices involved in the practical and theoretical issues surrounding international conflict resolution and transformation.
Senior Non-Resident Fellows
Air Marshal (retired) Edward Jackson Stringer, CB, CBE:
PhD Students
Emily Amarelo (History): Emily’s research focuses on the commemoration of women from across the British empire who died in the First World War. Her PhD is co-supervised by Hew Strachan and Derek Patrick.
Colonel Stephen Campbell (International Relations): Stephen is a full-time British Army officer. His PhD research focuses on decision making in British civil-military relations and the development and implementation of strategy. His other areas of interest are: contemporary global conflicts; Ukraine and Russia; competition in the High North; military and political history, particularly both world wars; conflict in the Middle East; counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism; the British conflict in Aden and South Arabia; military and civilian intelligence.
Mareva Chatzitheodorou (International Relations): Mareva’s research is at the intersection of security studies and discourse analysis. She focuses on the ways narrative affects and determines foreign policy, with an interest in the post-Soviet space. Her PhD explores the construction of security and security interests and their manifestation in word and deed.
Benjamin Claremont (International Relations): Benjamin is doing his PhD with Professor Sir Hew Strachan and Dr. Marc De Vore. His research interests include contemporary and 20th century high intensity (large scale) armed conflict (war) on land and sea, the Soviet military in theory and practice, Cold War US and UK threat doctrine development, naval combat in the missile age and the Russo-Ukrainian War.
Alexandra Kerr (International Relations): Alexandra’s research focuses on Security Sector Governance and Reform. Her PhD project explores underlying catalysts for success and failure in Security Sector Reform (SSR). She has more than a decade of experience working in the fields of international relations and defense around the world.