Meet our expanding advisory board...

Prof Bulent Gokay

Bulent Gokay is a professor of international relations at Keele University. He is a lecturer at Keele since 1996 from Wolfson College, Cambridge, where he had been a postdoctoral Research Fellow for the previous three years. Before coming to Keele, he taught  at the Birkbeck College-London, University of North London, and at the University of Cambridge.  He is the founder of the Eurasian Studies Network and co-founder of the Keele Southeast Europe Unit and the Forum for Sport in Global Politics and Society.  Bulent Gokay’s recent books include The Politics of Caspian Oil by Palgrave in 2001; Eastern Europe Since 1970 by Longman in 2005 (second edition in 2006), The New American Imperialism: Bush's War on Terror and Blood for Oil, co-authored with Vassilis K. Fouskas, published by Greenwood Publishing Group in 2005; Soviet Eastern Policy and Turkey, 1920-1991 by Routledge in 2006, and Politics of Oil – A Survey, by Routledge in 2006.

Prof. Gulnur Muradoglu

Gulnur Muradoglu has worked for Manchester School of Accounting and Finance as the Director of the M.Sc Finance Program and for Bilkent University as assistant and associate professor respectively. She has been at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania as a Fulbrighter and Warwick Business School as a Visiting Fellow. She is doing research on behavioral finance and emerging markets. She is on the Editorial Boards of the journals Comparative Economic Systems, Finance Letters and Emerging Markets Finance and Trade. She has published more than thirty articles in various journals including Journal of Behavioural Finance, Journal of Economics and Business, International Journal of Business, European Journal of Finance, Multinational Finance Journal, Applied Financial Economics, Developing Economies,European Journal of Operational Research, Journal of Forecasting, International Journal of Forecasting, and Applied Economics Letters. She has chaired the 11th Multinational Finance Society meeting in Istanbul in 2004 and she will chair the Euro working Group meeting to be held in London in 2006.

Prof. Talip Kucukcan

Talip Kucukcan is a Professor of Sociology and Religion at Marmara University, Istanbul; and an Advisor to the President of Higher Education Council of Turkey, Ankara. Dr. Kucukcan received a BA in Islamic Studies, Uludag University, Turkey; an MA from the School of Oriental and African Studies in Religious Studies and Politics , University of London, and a PhD in Sociology/Ethnic Relations from the University of Warwick. He works on freedom of religion, comparative secularism, state policies towards religious minorities and Muslim communities in Europe and the role of higher education in intercultural relations. His publications include Politics of Ethnicity, Identity and Religion: Turkish-Muslims in Britain, Avebury: Ashgate (1999); EuroTurks and Turkey-EU Relations: The Dutch Case, (co-authored with V. Gungor), Amsterdam: Turkevi Research Centre, 2006; Turks in Europe: Culture, Identity, Integration (co-edited with V. Gungor), Amsterdam: Turkevi Research Centre, 2009; State-Religion Relations in Europe (co-edited with Ali Kose), İstanbul: Centre for Islamic Studies, 2008 (in Turkish).

Dr Sirri Demirsoy

Sirri is involved with LCSS for general coordination of the infrastructure and groundwork, as well as organising seminars across platforms. He  holds a PhD degree in Electronics from University of Westminster, and a BSc degree from Middle Eastern Technical University (METU), Turkey. Prior to his current affiliation with a London based technology company, he worked as a researcher at the University of Westminster for three years. Sirri also has a long experience in developing and managing projects related to UK's Turkish ethnic minority wellfare and development. He voluntarily tought Maths and science modules at various weekend supplementary schools in London.

Ali Cifci

Ali is a member of the Executive Comittee at LCSS and has previously participated in the establishment and administration of many civic organisations both at national and international levels. He has a first degree in Mathematics Education from Marmara University in Turkey and a Graduate Diplama in Mathematics Teaching at AUT in New Zealand. Ali contributes to the research efforts at LCSS on the educational attainment of the Turkish speaking community  in the UK while continuing his masters studies at King's College London.

Dr Zeynep Engin

Zeynep is an interdisciplinary researcher with primary focus on the Bayesian philosophy of probability as it translates well to human behaviour in perception and decision making. She has a first class degree in Mathematics from Ankara University (Turkey), an MSc with distinction in Information Engineering from City University London, and a PhD in Computational Neuroscience from Imperial College London.  Zeynep's employment experience to date involves extensive teaching at pre-university, undergraduate, and postgraduate levels, editorial work for a trade union in Turkey, and voluntary work in a number of London based civic organisations. At LCSS, Zeynep coordinates project development and management activities.

Dr Selcuk Uygur

Selcuk has received his PhD degree from Brunel University on management researches. His research interests include work ethics, influence of beliefs in business, enterprise culture and entrepreneurship. He is also a member of the European Business Ethic Network (EBEN). At LCSS, Selcuk contributes to project development and seminar organisations in his research areas.

Harun Akyol

Harun is a lecturer in the department of Humanities at West Suffolk College, UK. He has been teaching introduction to sociology, theorising modernity and understanding deviance modules there since 2008. He is a graduate of the international relations Department of Istanbul University. He also has a master’s degree in Near and Middle Eastern Studies from the University of London (SOAS) in 2002. He taught Sociology, Turkish language and culture at Suffolk College between 2004 and 2007. He completed his PGCE (Post Graduate Teaching Certificate in Education) through the University of East Anglia in 2006. His main research interests include the theories of democracy, nationalism, ethnic conflict, Middle Eastern politics and post structuralism. He is currently engaged in a Ph.D. research project at the University of Essex’s department of government looking at the issues of Kurdish national discourse in the struggle for the future status of Kirkuk.

Aysegul Kayaoglu

Aysegul studied Business Administration at Bogazici (Bosphorus) University in Istanbul and completed her MSc in Economics at Birkbeck College, University of London with Chevening Scholarship. She is currently studying towards her PhD degree on the Policy Implications of Migration at Université Catholique de Louvain, IRES (Institut de recherches économiques et sociales). Her main research interests are development economics, economics of migration and economic integration of EU.

Alev Yaman

Alev is a GDL student at the BPP Law School. She graduated from the London School of Economics with a BSc in Government and Economics. Her interests include EU competition law, public policy and public law. Alev is a member of the seminar organisations team at LCSS.

Suzanne Ozcan

Suzanne is a Franco-Turkish lawyer specialised in international taxation. She was born in Turkey and moved  to France with her parents when she was three years old. She worked six years in Luxembourg after having spent two years in Stuttgart. She is currently attending an LLM at Queen Mary University to be followed with a PhD. She is interested in playing tennis and developing her knowledge in international relations. She feels very concerned about women rights and children education.