Senior Quantitative Social Scientist - Wellcome Connecting Science & Kavli Centre for Ethics, Science, and the Public
Assist. Prof. of Sociology - Dept. of Sociology, Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Senior Research Associate - HIVA, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
Interdisciplinary researcher, mentor, data-lover by birth, and social scientist by choice. I am a proud migrant who has worked and lived in Turkey, Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands. Since the summer of 2022, I am based in Cambridge, the UK. I currently work as a senior quantitative social scientist at Wellcome Connecting Science (WCS) and the Kavli Centre for Ethics, Science, and the Public, a joint initiative of WCS and Cambridge University. Moreover, I am still a part-time research professor at the Department of Sociology at Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), Belgium. Besides working as an external expert for the European Commission, and Belgian and international funding institutes; I have held advisory roles at numerous national and international institutes.
I am a collaborator of several scholars from different disciplines such as psychology, anthropology, political science, geography, educational science, economics, data science, and computer science as well as numerous colleagues from the industry, civil society, and public authorities. My scholarly interests cover a wide range from public perception and attitudes towards new technologies, ethical and trustworthy AI, use and governance of Big Data and AI for global challenges to diversity, migration, gender, inequalities, equal opportunities, and social and public policies. I have more than 15 years of experience in quantitative and mixed research methods and empirical research support policy-making. I believe in open science and science for society.
A bit about my academic journey:
After receiving my BSc in Statistics degree at the Middle East Technical University (METU), Turkey; I completed my MSc in Statistics and Ph.D. in Social and Political Sciences degrees at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KU Leuven), Belgium. Since April 2019, I am based at Interface Demography, VUB.
I worked as a statistical analyst and researcher at Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Germany; as a Ph.D. fellow at the Center for Political Research, and as a post-doc researcher at the Research Center of Public Economics (KU Leuven), Belgium; as an assistant professor at Okan University, Turkey; as a lecturer and senior researcher at Bahcesehir University, Turkey; as a senior researcher at Research Institute for Society and Work - HIVA (KU Leuven), Belgium; as the research coordinator of the Interface Demography research group at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB). I was a visiting scholar at the Department of Sociology, Cambridge University (UK) between March-August 2021 and at the Social and Affective Computing Group, Department of Information and Computing Sciences, Utrecht University (NL) between October 2020-January 2021.
A bit about my personal journey:
I have always loved small cities and am fascinated by people's stories. So, I listen and observe. I believe that everybody should have equal opportunities and access to their rights. Hence, I do my best at every chance to fight against inequality. I am a mother of two amazing boys who brag about their mom being a scientist and my biggest challenge is trying to raise them as fair and caring human beings.