Dr Joanna Spear

Dr Joanna Spear is a Research Professor of International Affairs and Director and Principal Investigator of the Foreign Area Officer Regional Skill Sustainment Initiative, a U.S. Department of Defense funded programme at George Washington University. She was previously Director of the Elliott School’s Security Policy Studies Programme and the Founding Director of the National Security Studies Programme. Prior to joining George Washington University, she was a Senior Lecturer in the Department of War Studies, King’s College London.

Dr Spear has published on a variety of subjects in international security, including arms control, U.S. foreign policy making, post-conflict peace building and arms exports. Her work can be found in Arms Control Today, Contemporary Security Policy, Security Studies, Strategic Analysis, Review of International Studies and World Politics Review. Her most recent book, The Business of Armaments: Armstrongs, Vickers and the International Arms Trade, 1855-1955 was published by Cambridge University Press in 2023.

Dr Spear has held fellowships at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University, the Brookings Institution, the Institute for Defence and Security Analyses, New Delhi and was twice a visiting scholar at Chatham House. During 2023-24 she was a Wilson International Fellow at the Wilson Center in Washington, DC working on a new project on the foreign policies of the firms making vaccines against Covid-19.