Dr Seely is an Associate Professor of Politics at Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana. Her areas of expertise are in African politics, democratization, and the international political economy of development. She conducted dissertation research in Togo and Benin, and she has field experience in a number of francophone African countries. She has published some of her findings about Togolese politics since the early 1990s in the journals Electoral Studies and Democratization, and in the reference work Africa Contemporary Record. Since 2005 Dr Seely has served as an expert witness in several cases of Togolese asylum seekers, at different times preparing to testify in person, on the telephone, or in writing.