I am currently an M. Barzani postdoctoral fellow and professorial lecturer at the School of International Service, American University in Washington, DC, US. During my postdoctoral fellowship, I presented my research at reputable universities, such as the Centre for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University; the Centre for Near Eastern Studies at UCLA; The Project on Middle East Political Science, the Institute for Middle East Studies at George Washington University; Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies; and the Buffett Institute for Global Affairs at Northwestern University. I’ve also been an active member of Complex Governance as well as Political Violence and Security Research Clusters at American University, School of International Service.
Meanwhile, I was invited by think tanks and policy institutes to give a talk on Turkey, Kurds, MENA politics, US foreign policy, and the future of US-Kurdish relations in Washington DC and London, the UK, such as the Project on Middle East Democracy and the Centre for Kurdish Progress. I am currently a board member of the Women in International Security, Canada alongside prominent women leaders of Canada (i.e. academics, diplomats, and policy-makers).
My Ph.D. dissertation, “Territorial Control and Minority Reforms: A Study of Turkey’s Kurdish Borderlands,” develops a typology of territorial control that draws on 12 months of fieldwork in rural areas in Turkey’s Kurdish borderlands. This research was awarded by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and Mitacs, Canada.
My book proposal, “Informal Control: Everyday Lives of State-building in Kurdish Borderlands,” is close to submission this year. This research has also been awarded by the American Political Science Association (APSA) Centennial Center (for community engagement); The Middle East Studies Association (MESA) Global Academy; the Association for the Study of the Middle East and North African Association (ASMEA), and the American University, Kurdish Studies Award in 2021-22.
Before joining American University, I had a mix of both research and teaching positions as follows:
- Visiting Scholar, Institute for European Studies, M. Einaudi Centre for International Studies, Cornell University, US.
- Research Fellow, Center for the Study of Democracy and Diversity, Queen’s University, Canada.
- Research Fellow, Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies on Democracy and Diversity, CRIDAQ, Université du Québec à Montréal, Canada.
- Teaching Fellow, Department of Political Studies, Queen’s University, Canada.
- Ph.D., Political Studies, Queen’s University, Canada & Laboratory for Ethnic Conflict Research, Queen’s University, Canada.
In line with my interdisciplinary background in politics, economics, and philosophy, my teaching and research expertise are primarily in comparative politics and international affairs. My solid experience in specific topics in political theory, such as justice, secession, and territorial rights, also informs my teaching and research.
In particular, my teaching and research portfolio (and interests) primarily lie in conflict and peace studies, comparative territorial and border politics, global environmental politics, MENA politics, democratization, political violence, ethnic politics, and nationalism, as well as state-minority relations in conflict zones.
I am currently conducting qualitative research, but my strong background in economics enables me to integrate quantitative methods, which I may apply to my future research. I used E-views for advanced econometrics analysis during my undergraduate research at Bogazici University, Department of Economics; used SPSS for advanced statistical analysis during my MA studies at Central European University, Department of Political Science, and got qualitative research training at the Institute for Qualitative and Multi-Method Research (IQMR), Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University.