Aaron Stanley

Aaron Stanley is deputy director and fellow of the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), bringing more than a decade of policy-engaged research on Africa and U.S.-Africa relations. Most recently, Stanley served as deputy director and research fellow at the Research on International Policy Implementation Lab (RIPIL) at American University, where he led efforts to translate research into actionable policy. Previously, he was senior program associate with the Wilson Center Africa Program, managing program activities across a broad portfolio of Africa policy issues. Stanley has lived and worked in Kenya and Somalia, leading policy engagement on governance, peace, and security issues. He has also held a position at Carnegie Corporation of New York's International Peace and Security program, where he supported grantmaking and programming on peacebuilding in Africa, Asian security, track II negotiations, and bridging the gap between academic and policy communities. Stanley is a PhD candidate in political science at the City University of New York's Graduate Center, where his dissertation examines the development of institutional legitimacy in Somalia. He was a USIP-Minerva Peace Fellow for 2021–2022. He holds an MSc in violence, conflict, and development from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, and a BA in international relations and African studies from Boston University.