Sean Paul Ashley is President's Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland. His primary research interests include conflict legacies, revolution, civil war, and authoritarian survival in the developing world. His work has received the Patricia Weitsman Award from the International Studies Association (2024), the Best Graduate Student Paper award (2023) from the African Politics Conference Group Section of the American Political Science Association, and was shortlisted for the Conflict Research Society Cedric Smith Prize (2023). His research has appeared in International Studies Quarterly and Conflict, Security and Development.

He received his PhD in Government from Harvard University in spring of 2023. He previously served as the Niehaus Postdoctoral Fellow in U.S. Foreign Policy and International Security at the John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding at Dartmouth College, and as a Hans J. Morgenthau Fellow at Notre Dame International Security Center.