Dr Aimée Fox is a senior lecturer in the School of International Relations at the University of St Andrews. An historian by training, her research focuses on the conduct and experience of warfare in the twentieth century with a broad interest in how military organisations innovate and change in historic and contemporary contexts. Before joining St Andrews in 2025, Aimée spent eight years in the School of Security Studies at King’s College London where she taught at the UK’s Joint Services Command and Staff College. Prior to this, she worked at the University of Birmingham where she also completed her AHRC-funded doctorate on military innovation in the British armed forces.

Aimée is a Fellow of both the Royal Historical Society and the Higher Education Academy, and an elected Fellow of the Society for Army Historical Research in recognition of "distinguished contributions to the study of the British Army in the twentieth century". In 2025, she successfully completed AdvanceHE’s Aurora programme — a leadership development initiative for women in Higher Education. She has served as an elected trustee for the Society for Military History (2021-24) and continues to serve on the National Army Museum’s research and collections advisory panel, which helps shape the museum’s exhibitions and collections policies.

Currently, Aimée sits on the editorial advisory boards of Oxford Research Encyclopedia in Military History, International Journal of Military History and Historiography, and British Journal for Military History. She is also the co-founder and co-editor of McGill-Queen’s University Press’s 'War and the British Empire' series.

Aimée has held visiting positions with the Australian Defence Force Academy, Australian War Memorial, Brute Krulak Center for Innovation and Future Warfare at Marine Corps University, and Deakin University's Centre for Future Defence and National Security. 

An award-winning author, Aimée has published widely on the British armed forces in the era of the First World War (c.1899-1923) and on contemporary Defence. Her first major research project explored how armed forces—both historic and modern—accommodate and respond to change, along with the frictions associated with the movement of expertise, experience, and knowledge between and within organisations as well as across geographical boundaries.

She is currently pursuing two research projects: first, an exploration of gossip as a form of military knowledge and its relationship to organisational learning, sense-making, and affect in armed forces; and secondly, a collective biography of a social network (or 'world') in the era of the First World War. Using the ‘small history’ of this 'world'—whose members were intimately involved in military, political, royal, and literary circles—the project explores several themes, such as ideologies of reform and 'efficiency', notions of self-improvement, attitudes towards empire and imperialism, intimacy, and the under-rated role of women in public affairs. While grounded in historical methods, both projects draw on approaches and theoretical frameworks from feminist IR and critical military studies.

Aimée's broad research interests are listed below:

• Social and military history of the First World War
• Military innovation and adaptation in historic contexts
• Organisational learning and change in military organisations
• Social and military history of the British and Commonwealth armed forces, 1865-1939
• Military families in the British and Commonwealth armed forces in the early twentieth century

She is currently accepting new postgraduate research students in the above research areas.

Aimée contributes to team teaching at sub-honours level on:

• IR1005 Concepts in Global Politics
• IR1006 Foreign Policy and Diplomacy in Global Politics

She is also programme coordinator for the School's online MSc Conflict and Security in Policy and Practice, and convenes the following modules:

• IR5832 Introduction to War and Strategy
• IR5839 Imagining the Future of War

Aimée has strong working relationships with stakeholders in UK Defence. During her time at the UK's Joint Services Command and Staff College, she taught UK and international military officers between ranks OF-2 and OF-5. From 2016-18, she served as an academic advisor to the British Army during Operation REFLECT — the army's First World War centenary activities. She has also consulted with UK Defence's Strategic Workforce Analysis team on the role of the service mess to Defence, and with UK Defence Futures (formerly DCDC) on ideas of strategic adaptability.

Outside UK Defence, Aimée has worked closely with the Australian Defence College and the US's Marine Corps University. She has also presented her research to the Royal Military College of Canada.

History of War
Military Innovation
Organisational Learning
UK Defence
UK Armed Forces
British Army