I am an independent scholar specializing in comparative electoral institutions, strategic elite behavior, and intersectional political representation. I received my Ph.D. in Public Affairs and Policy from Portland State University in 2023. My research investigates how political elites strategically leverage gender, race, and ethnicity during periods of democratic backsliding, focusing primarily on Turkey, Europe, and the broader Middle East.
I am currently finalizing my book manuscript, Symbolic Leverage: Gender, Religious Identity, and Electoral Competition in Polarized Turkey. Expanding on my work in Politics & Gender, I argue that political parties in polarized environments nominate candidates with specific identity markers—such as veiling and nonveiling—to signal moderation to swing voters without conceding actual political power or altering core policy platforms.
My broader research pipeline interrogates elite strategies for autocratic resilience and electoral survival. This includes investigating the candidate selection strategies utilized by both ruling and opposition parties to navigate competitive authoritarian regimes. Furthermore, my collaborative and forthcoming projects expand this theoretical framework by examining how the strategic appointment of state trustees is weaponized to reshape local electoral competition, exploring how authoritarian leaders exploit women's representation for reputational security in the Gulf as well as analyzing the experience premium for women in South African local elections.
Methodologically, my work integrates qualitative depth with original datasets to capture the opaque, demand-side calculus of party gatekeepers. To overcome the limitations of standard representation analyses, I built the Political Representation Index of Turkey (PRIT). By harmonizing comprehensive gender-coded demographic data for more than 11,900 parliamentary candidates and 4,000 mayoral candidates, this dataset enables rigorous empirical testing of political elites' strategic candidate selection decisions. Further documentation and access to the PRIT can be found in the Datasets section of this website. I pair this structural data with full-factorial survey experiments and a proprietary qualitative archive drawn from in-depth elite interviews.
Alongside my current research and book project, my teaching background includes serving as an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Portland State University and Part-time Faculty at Özyeğin University. I have designed and delivered a rigorous suite of courses, including Comparative Politics, Middle Eastern Politics, European Union Politics, and Women’s Leadership. Detailed course syllabi, and a summary of student teaching evaluations are available in the Teaching section of this website.
My published and working papers can be found on the Publications section of this website and Google Scholar.
My current CV is accessible here.