She holds a doctorate in history and Middle Eastern and Islamic studies from New York University in 2007, an MA from Georgetown University’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, and a BA from the University of California, San Diego. Before coming to AUC, Seikaly was the Qatar Postdoctoral Fellow at Georgetown University (2007-2008) and a postdoctoral fellow in Middle Eastern studies in the Europe Program at Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (2008-2009). Seikaly is also a co-founder of Jadaliyya Ezine.