Spotlight on: Andrea Brewington

We’re delighted to introduce Andrea Brewington as part of our PhD/ECR Spotlight Series. As a PhD researcher at Cranfield University, Andrea’s research focuses on the operational experiences of British Army women in Iraq and Afghanistan.  

Find out more about Andrea below and connect via LinkedIn.  

Tell us a bit about yourself.  

I am a PhD researcher at Cranfield Defence and Security in my fourth year of a six-year part time PhD. I am exploring how the British Army can optimise for future conflict by examining the operational experiences of women veterans who deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. Before beginning my doctorate, I served for 24 years in the British Army as both a soldier and later a commissioned officer, deploying to Bosnia, Northern Ireland, Iraq and Afghanistan. 

I currently work for the U.S. Department of War (formerly the Department of Defense), as an academic advisor deployed to Riyadh. I support the development of Professional Military Education (PME) across partner nations in the Middle East. My role focuses on strengthening intellectual capability through the design of defence education, training faculty to deliver quality adult learning and institutional capacity building. 

My research brings together my operational experience, my work in international defence education and my interest in gender, organisational culture and military effectiveness. Using Constructivist Grounded Theory, I seek to understand how women experienced deployment, the roles they undertook and what these experiences can tell us about future force design. Outside academia, I enjoy travelling, having recently completed visiting every continent. I also enjoy exploring learning technology and how artificial intelligence is changing the education landscape. 

What are your research interests?  

My research sits at the intersection of gender studies, military sociology and institutional cultures. I am particularly interested in how military organisations adapt to social change, how institutional cultures shape the experiences of service personnel, and how qualitative research can inform defence policy and organisational learning. 

My doctoral research focuses on the operational experiences of British Army women in Iraq and Afghanistan. Rather than asking whether women can serve in combat, I am interested in understanding what they did, how they experienced military culture, and what capabilities they brought to operations. This moves the discussion beyond debates about integration towards questions of organisational learning and operational optimisation. 

More broadly, I am interested in Professional Military Education, defence transformation, leadership and the ways in which militaries are changing to adapt to the changing world order and character of conflict. 

Who is your favourite feminist icon?   

My choice would be Elsie Inglis. As a Scottish physician, suffragist and founder of the Scottish Women's Hospitals for Foreign Service during the First World War, she demonstrated remarkable determination in challenging institutional assumptions about women's contributions to national security. After her offer of medical support was dismissed by the British War Office, she did not abandon her objective. Instead, she established an organisation that went on to deliver vital medical care across multiple theatres of war, proving through action the value of women's expertise to the war effort. 

What I find particularly compelling is that Inglis was motivated not simply by a desire for equality, but by a conviction that excluding capable people diminished operational effectiveness. That resonates strongly with my own research, which seeks to understand how the British Army can better recognise and employ the diverse skills and experiences of women. Her legacy reminds us that institutional change is most enduring when it is driven by evidence, capability and service, rather than assumption.   

What are three sources you would recommend to others interested in feminist IR generally or your research topic in particular?  

My recommendations reflect the interdisciplinary nature of my research rather than a single academic tradition. 

First, Black Hearts. Read alongside The Lucifer Effect, it provides a compelling insight into how leadership, organisational culture, stress and institutional failure can combine to produce catastrophic outcomes in military operations. Together, they remind us that operational success depends as much on people and organisations as on equipment or tactics. 

Second, Helena Carreiras, Gender and the Military: Women in the Armed Forces of Western Democracies which offers an excellent comparative analysis of military institutions and remains essential reading for understanding gender integration and organisational change. 

Finally, Constructing Grounded Theory by Kathy Charmaz has fundamentally shaped my approach to interviewing, coding and theory development. It is an invaluable guide for anyone seeking to understand complex social experiences through rigorous qualitative research. 

What’s next for you?  

My immediate priority is completing my PhD and publishing findings that contribute to both academic debate and defence policy. I hope the research provides a more nuanced understanding of women's operational experiences while informing future approaches to force design, capability development and military effectiveness. 

Beyond the doctorate, I intend to continue working at the intersection of academia and practice. I am particularly interested in Professional Military Education, defence transformation and qualitative research methods, helping military organisations use evidence to improve education, leadership and institutional learning. I also hope to expand my work internationally by collaborating with researchers and defence institutions interested in organisational learning, gender and the future character of conflict. Ultimately, I would like my research to contribute not only to scholarly discussions but also to better-informed decisions within defence organisations.