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Staff Profile

Dr Katharine A. M. Wright

Senior Lecturer in International Politics

Background

Dr Katharine A. M. Wright is a Senior Lecturer in International Politics within the School of Geography, Politics and Sociology, having joined Newcastle University in 2017.

Dr Wright is a feminist International Relations scholar who specialises in Women, Peace and Security (WPS) and Defence and is an expert on NATO. Relatedly, she has published on Feminist Foreign Policy, Public/Digital Diplomacy, the EU and Northern Ireland.

At Newcastle, Dr Wright is a co-convener of the Military, War and Security Research Group. Externally, she is a member of the Northumbrian Universities Military Education Committee and a member of the Steering Committee of the NATO Civil Society Advisory Panel on Women, Peace and Security.

She has extensive experience of engaging with policy making and civil society communities globally to inform evidence based decision making. Her research has informed workshops, training and briefings for various NATO bodies, militaries, governments and non-governmental organisations. She has also co-authored a guide to Gender and Inclusivity in Peace and Security published by the Quaker Council for European Affairs. In addition to acting as a media commentator both nationally and internationally, in print and broadcast, including interviews for BBC News, ABC News, Al Jazeera and Global Magazine amongst others.


Research expertise:

  • NATO
  • UK Defence Policy
  • Women, Peace and Security
  • Digital Diplomacy
  • Feminist Foreign Policy


Professional Memberships

International Studies Association (ISA)

British International Studies Association (BISA)

University Association for Contemporary European Studies (UACES)

Google scholar: Click here.

Orcid ID: 0000-0003-0911-5122

Pronouns: She/Her

Research

Dr Wright’s research focuses on gender, defence and security. She is particularly interested in the engagement of Defence with feminist agendas, including the Women, Peace and Security agenda and Feminist Foreign Policy. She is an expert on NATO, and in studying the Alliance’s approach to Women, Peace and Security has published on NATO’s approach to public/digital diplomacy (from a visual and celebrity perspective), strategic narratives and how NATO functions as an institution of international hegemonic masculinity. She is the author of NATO, Gender and the Military: Women organising from within (with Dr Matthew Hurley and Jesus Ignacio Gil Ruiz), which received an Honourable Mention in the 2020 BISA Susan Strange Book Prize

Relatedly, her work has also engaged with the European Union’s approach to Women, Peace and Security, and she has published on this in relation to the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP), digital diplomacy and Feminist Foreign Policy.

She is also interested in the domestication of the Women, Peace and Security agenda. Most recently, receiving funding from the Equality Commission Northern Ireland (with Prof Ruth McAreavey) to examine the impact of Brexit on women in Northern Ireland.

Teaching

Dr Katharine A. M. Wright is passionate about learning and teaching. She has taught on a broad range of Politics and International Relations modules at both undergraduate and postgraduate level across three different institutions. Her approach to teaching is grounded in the idea that students should be actively involved in their own learning. She draws extensively on the problem based approach, including simulations, to support students in connecting theoretical concepts with empirical reality.

She is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and has a PgCert in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education (PGCAP) with distinction.

For 2024/25 she is Co-Politics Postgraduate Taught Director and will be teaching:

  • POL2110 Security Studies (Co-Module Leader)
  • POL8070 Problem Solving for Defence (H4MOD) (Co-Module Leader)
  • POL8041 Thinking about Politics (Modle Leader)
  • POL3046 Dissertation (Supervisor)

Dr Wright is an External Examiner at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and Staffordshire University.





Publications