Graduate & Undergraduate Mentorship

Gizem Turkarslan, a Visiting Scholar at Northeastern University, is a PhD Candidate in International Relations and Political Science at Koc University in Istanbul, Turkey. Her PhD research focuses on women’s activism in Turkey and in Tunisia from a comparative perspective. Her broader interests include citizenship studies, gender in the Middle East and women’s rights advocacy. Gizem presented the results of her field work and work on her dissertation manuscript to the BCARS team. Special thanks to the Scientific Research Council of Turkey, who is supporting Gizem's time at Northeastern.

Alice, a PhD candidate in Political Science at Northeastern University, has a strong background in Middle Eastern Studies and is currently focusing on the effects of EU migration policy in the Central Mediterranean. Through BCARS, she has been able to organize a workshop in Brussels on the EU Asylum System, she has presented her research at APSA 2017, MESA 2017, and the Boston International Security Graduate Conference. She has participated in conferences and short courses at the American University in Cairo, and a Migration Summer School at the European University Institute in Florence. Her fieldwork brought her to Brussels, Italy, and Egypt. She is currently working on her dissertation and other articles related to migration and asylum in Europe and the Mediterranean. 

Ahsen Utku is a PhD student in Political Science at Northeastern University. She has earned a dual Master’s degree from the Fletcher School, Tufts University and Harvard Divinity School. Her research focuses on forced displacement, conflict resolution and identity building, particularly in the Balkans and the Middle East. Her master's thesis explored the Jewish and Roma communities in post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina. Prior to her studies in the United States, Ahsen worked as a journalist in Istanbul while pursuing her first master’s degree in International Relations at Marmara University.

Zeynep Balcioglu is currently a Doctoral Candidate at the Department of Political Science at Northeastern University.  Zeynep holds degrees in political science from Bogazici University (BA) and King’s College London (MA). She studies forced migration, social policy and welfare provision in the Middle East. She conducted extensive field work with Syrian refugees in Turkey and authored multiple policy reports for BCARS and Feinstein International Center of Tufts University. She is currently working as a consultant to the UNHCR Lebanon as part of a research team working on multi-purpose cash assistance for refugees in Lebanon. 

Across Europe, the figure of the migrant has taken center stage in anxious debates about the present and future of the nation-state. Against this backdrop, a range of laws and policies regulating migrants’ relation to the nation-state – or ‘migrant citizenship’ – have been adopted and implemented. Alice Verticelli, a member of the BCARS Scholar Advisory Board, traveled to Egypt to participate in a "short course" run by the Center for Migration and Refugee Studies (CMRS) at the American University in Cairo exploring these issues. 

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The course traced the unfolding of neoliberal welfare reforms and the culturalization of citizenship in Europe of the past few decades, and delved into the actual laws and policies regulating migrant citizenship. Alice shared her experience with the BCARS team, and the course, led by Wiebe Ruijtenberg (Raboud University) will support Alice's PhD research. 

BCARS hosted Dr. Zulfukar Aytac Kisman, a Visiting Scholar at Harvard University and Assistant Professor at Firat University in Turkey to present his research on the conditions of Syrian refugees in Turkey. He specifically focused on Syrian refugee access to educational and health services, as well as their access to and participation in Turkish labor markets. Dr. Kisman's research is supported by the Republic of Turkey Family and Social Policies Ministry and the Turkish Research and Social Policy Development Directorate.