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 Ibrahim Sirkeci

Ibrahim Sirkeci is a Professor in Transnational Studies and Marketing and the Director of the Regent's Centre for Transnational Studies at Regent's College London. He is also Pathway Leader for MA in International Marketing Programme. He teaches International Marketing, supervises postgraduate research, and studies the demographic phenomena in tracks of segmentation of transnational consumers, ethnic segregation, international mobility (internal and international migration), reproductive health, socioeconomic analysis with a multimethod interdisciplinary approach. He joined Regent's College European Business School London in August 2005 following a short spell as Leverhulme Research Fellow at the University of Bristol. Ibrahim is Managing Editor of Migration Letters journal co-edited by Jeffrey Cohen, Elli Heikkila and Carla De Tona. He is also the Editor of Transnational Marketing Journal.

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.

Mr Ali Cifci

Ali is the Director of Education Platform at LCSS and a research student at the University of Cambridge.  His main research interest is the strategic behaviour of students in problem solving during their mathematics education. Ali 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, a Graduate Diplama in Mathematics Teaching at AUT in New Zealand, and a Masters degree in the same area from King's College London.  

Dr Zeynep Engin

Zeynep Engin is the Director-General of the London Centre for Social Studies (LCSS) and an interdisciplinary researcher. Her main research interests include statistical modelling, complexity theory and Turkish Migration in the EU. She obtained her PhD in statistical pattern recognition from Imperial College London in 2009. Prior to this, Zeynep held a visiting position at Tokyo Institute of Technology (TIT) as the SERP’06 Exchange Scholar of Imperial College. After completion of her PhD, Zeynep initially worked as a project manager at the LCSS, and was then appointed as a member of the Board of Directors. During her postgraduate studies in London she was actively involved in a number of community organisations tackling educational, gender, and faith issues. Her current research aims to conceptualise the social integration dynamics in multi-cultural societies through the use of complexity theory taking the Turkish Speaking Community in Britain as the test population. Her research involves both qualitative and quantitative components, with a specific focus on the use of Bayesian paradigm for modelling complex social problems.

Dr Sibel Safi

Sibel has an LLB degree from University of Ankara - Law Faculty, after graduation from TED College of high school. She has a masters degree in European Union Law from University of Bucharest and an LLM degree in International Law from University of East London. Sibel has received her PhD degree from University of Bucharest in International Human Rights Law area. She involved in extensive teaching in European Union law lectures at Academy of Sciences of Economy. Previously, she had voluntary works for the CMRB and EJN research centres of University of East London. She has one book published for the Evaluation of Human Rights and the second book concerning press freedoms of the countries will be published at UEL soon. 

Mr 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.