About

I am a PhD Candidate in Anthropology with a focus in migration, identity, and ethnic minority studies. In 2015, I received my M.A. in Political Science from Western Michigan University and earned my B.A. degree in European Studies from Maastricht University, in the Netherlands. I was born in Turkey and migrated to Germany at a young age and had the luck to grew up trilingual (Zazaki, Turkish, German) and learned a few other languages in school. My increased knowledge of languages led to a growing curiosity on how people navigate cultural practices such as language and religion as a result of migration and establish meaningful communities. Upon the completion of my doctoral degree, I aspire to teach at a university and continue my research on migration and human rights with the goal to influence policy making for minority communities.

PhD Year
2022
Current Research

I examine how minority ethnic and linguistic groups and their advocates assess, preserve, and in some cases, expand basic rights for expression and recognition. This research has implications for extending human rights policies to immigrant and/or minority communities in heterogeneous societies across Europe, the Middle East, and the U.S. I was also very fortunate to have received a summer research grant by the Kellogg Institute to conduct preliminary fieldwork in Izmir, Turkey. I'm currently working in completing my report and I'm very excited about my findings and the connections I was able to already make.

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