Lindsey Stephenson holds a PhD from Princeton University, Department of Near Eastern Studies. She is a social historian of the Middle East and Indian Ocean. Broadly her work focuses on the transformation of Gulf society in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. She is invested in uncovering stories of pre-oil life, and documenting the ways in which the Gulf shifted away from the Indian Ocean and towards a nationally conceived Middle East. She is particularly interested in law, the built environment, and material culture. 

Lindsey also holds a Master's degree in Muslim Cultures from the Aga Khan University - Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilizations. She earned her BA at Georgia State University in Political Science and Middle Eastern Studies.