She received her Ph.D. from the Department of Anthropology at Brown University in 2011. Her research focuses on media and political change in Latin America. Her book manuscript, The Politics of Resolution: Television, Protest, and Democracy in Chile, examines the anticipation and friction that accompany political and technological transition. Based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork, this project explores how transitions are never a finished story, but rather an ongoing reckoning with past and present debates around representation, belonging, public goods, and government provision. Professor Ashley was awarded a 2017-2018 Fenwick Fellowship for her project "The Political Afterlife of the Chilean Plebiscite."