I’m a political geographer driven by curiosity about how power, place, and identity shape our world. My research, writing, and teaching engage with questions around state power, migration, inequality, and violence, drawing on feminist geography, critical geopolitics, refugee studies, and Kurdish studies.

My current research investigates state violence through a feminist and embodied lens. Focusing on Kurdish-majority cities in Turkey, I examine how state violence is enacted, experienced, and normalized in everyday life. By paying attention to emotions, practices, and the institutional cultures of security personnel, I seek to move beyond abstract understandings of the state and instead foreground its embodied, intimate, and affective dimensions. This work contributes to feminist political geography while opening new ways of thinking about violence, power, and lived geographies.

Teaching is a central part of my academic practice. I see the classroom as a space where students learn to connect global processes to everyday experiences, question dominant narratives, and develop their own analytical voice. This often includes structured discussions, short analytical writing exercises, and collaborative activities that help students connect theory to lived experience. I have particular experience working with diverse and first-generation students, and I strive to create learning environments where curiosity, discomfort, and dialogue can coexist productively. I’ve taught in Turkey, the U.S., and Switzerland, offering courses in Geography, Middle East Studies, Sociology, and Political Science. Over the past three years, I’ve led MA-level seminars and lectures in Political Geography, Feminist Geographies, and Research Colloquia.

I hold a BA and MA in Political Science from Turkey and earned my PhD in Geography from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2020. After a year at TED University in Ankara, I joined the Institute of Geography at the University of Bern in 2022 as a postdoctoral researcher, where I continue to work today.

My doctoral research focused on Turkish-Sunni diaspora mosques in Germany and their role as political and social spaces. Since then, I’ve collaborated with Dr. Banu Gökarıksel and Betül Aykaç on a project exploring how Afghan and Syrian refugees are represented through geopolitical discourses in Turkey.

I am actively engaged in academic service and collective scholarly work across national and international contexts. I co-chair the Feminist Geographies Group of the Swiss Association of Geographers (ASG), where I contribute to fostering interdisciplinary dialogue, organizing scholarly events, and supporting early-career researchers. I am also an active member of the Swiss Association for Turkish Studies (SFST) and the Swiss Society for the Middle East and Islamic Cultures (SGMOIK), through which I participate in interdisciplinary conversations on migration, politics, and regional studies. In 2025, I joined the board of the AAG Political Geography Specialty Group, where I contribute to initiatives that support research exchange, mentorship, and community-building within political geography.

Outside academia, I find joy in the small things—collecting everyday objects and turning them into keepsakes, experimenting with artistic crafting, and reading art history as an amateur. I also enjoy sci-fi and fantasy, while comedy for me is both a way to relax and a political lens I deeply appreciate. Cooking Mediterranean vegan dishes (with varying results!) and walking in the rain or getting lost in a new city are among my favorite pastimes.