Tristan James Mabry

Tristan James Mabry is an American political scientist in the Department of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. In addition, he was the founding Executive Director of the Joint Foreign Area Officer Program, a Department of Defense project to enhance resources and training for military experts in the politics and cultures of world regions. His research addresses the comparative politics of nationalism, ethnic conflict, language and Islam, with a particular focus on the mobilization of Muslim minority independence movements. Mabry’s doctoral dissertation was based on field work interviews with the separatist leaders of Kurds in Iraq, Uighurs in China, Sindhis in Pakistan, Kashmiris in India, the Acehnese people in Indonesia and the Moro people in the Philippines.

He taught previously at Bryn Mawr College and Haverford College in Pennsylvania, as well as Georgetown University in Washington, DC. Mabry is a graduate of McGill University, the London School of Economics and Political Science, and the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied under the supervision of Brendan O'Leary. He is now an Associate Fellow of the Penn Program on Ethnic Conflict.

Mabry moved to higher education after a first career in journalism, working as a reporter for The Wall Street Journal covering economics, and as a producer for CNN where he worked closely with anchor and correspondent, Kitty Pilgrim.