Stuart joined the Department of Political Economy in 2016 and works primarily on elections, public opinion and political parties. He is the recipient of a UK Economic & Social Research Council (ESRC) Doctoral Scholarship (2016/19) and his doctoral thesis investigates the political impact of the EU's economic intervention in EMU members states on political party competition in a multi-level setting. He has also completed work on the partisan use of social media as well as electoral behaviour

Stuart has a solid training in quantitative methods, including experimental research designs, having completed methodological training at the Essex Summer School in Social Science Data Analysis as well as the European Field Experiments Summer School. He applies both qualitative and quantitative research methods in his thesis and has published on partisan campaign experiments. During 2017/18 he was an Adam Smith Fellow at the Mercatus Centre, George Mason University. Currently he is undertaking an international visiting fellow position at the Instituto Juan March at the Carlos III University in Madrid.  

Stuart holds a MA in European Union Politics (distinction) from the University of Leicester and was awarded the 'Best Postgraduate Student' prize in the Department of Politics and International Relations. He also has an MA (Hons) in Spanish from the University of Glasgow.