​ ​Ashlie was born and raised in Edinburgh, Scotland. In 2018 she received her BSc Honours in Marine Science on the west coast at the Scottish Association for Marine Science as a University of Highlands and Islands student. Prior to this, Ashlie was a Georgia Rotary Student Programme scholar and attended the University of North Georgia as a biology Major in 2013. 

Ashlie's thesis worked alongside Scottish Natural Heritage investigating the dorsal pigmentation patterns of flapper skate to help create the Common Skate Photo-Identification Database for Scotland. Ashlie also worked with other shark species as part of the Scottish Shark Tagging Programme, and hopes to continue and expand upon this work.

During her undergraduate, Ashlie also assisted in many interdisciplinary projects including two research cruises. One on board the RRS Discovery to Iceland as part of the Extended Ellett Line team, the other on board the RRS James Clark Ross to the Barents Sea as part of Arctic PRIZE. Through this Ashlie has found that her passions lie in the field aspect of marine science, as well as in warmer climates of the Red Sea having attending the RSRC summer course in 2017. 

Ashlie is passionate about her research and is hoping to continue her work with cartilaginous fish in the context of the Red Sea as part of the Reef Ecology Lab at KAUST. ​