Ahmet İçduygu is the former Dean of the College of Social Sciences and Humanities at Koç University, Istanbul, Turkey. He currently holds a dual appointment as a full professor at Koç, one is in the Department of International Relations and the other is in the Department of Sociology. He is also the Director of the Migration Research Center at Koc (MiReKoc). He holds a PhD in Demography from the Australian National University. He held visiting professor or fellow positions at Stockholm University, the University of Warwick, the University of Manchester, the European University Institute in Florence, the University of Pennsylvania, Malmö University, and the University of Amsterdam. He is an elected member of the Science Academy in Turkey. In addition to his own individual research projects, Prof. İçduygu has conducted various research projects for the international organizations such as IOM, UNHCR, EU, OECD and ILO. He teaches on migration studies, theories and practices of citizenship, international organizations, civil society, nationalism and ethnicity, and research methods. In addition to his numerous articles in scholarly journals, such as Ethnic and Racial Studies, Citizenship Studies, European Review, International Migration, International Labor and Working Class History, Population, Space and Place, and British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, his most recent books include: Migration and Transformation: Multi-Level Analysis of Migrant Transnationalism, co-edited with P. Pitkänen and D. Sert (Springer, 2011), Countries of Migrants, Cities of Migrants – Italy, Spain, Turkey, co-edited with M. Balbo and J.P. Serrano (ISI Press, 2013), and Critical Reflections in Migration Research: Views from the South and the East, co-edited with Ayşem Biriz Karaçay (Koç University Press, 2014).
Rebecca Bryant is Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Utrecht University. She studied Cultural Anthropology at the University of Chicago and has since held teaching and research positions at the London School of Economics, George Mason University, and the American University in Cairo. She has also taught as a Fulbright fellow at Bogaziçi University in Istanbul and as a visiting professor at Middle East Technical University’s Cyprus campus. She holds affiliations as an Associate of the Peace Research Institute Oslo and a Research Fellow in the European Institute of the London School of Economics
Ayşen Üstübici is currently an Assistant Professor at Koç University Department of Sociology and the Department of Political Science. She completed her PhD at Koç University and at the University of Amsterdam in 2015. Her book based on her dissertation entitled ‘The Governance of International Migration: Irregular Migrants’ Access to Right to Stay in Turkey and Morocco’ has recently been published by the University of Amsterdam Press. The book compares irregular migration regimes and the effects of border externalization from the perspective of state and non-state actors and migrant incorporation in Turkey and Morocco. Her current research, on local integration in different districts of Istanbul focuses on the question of integration and social cohesion at the level of local governance. She is also involved in two new research projects as part of EU-wide consortia funded with Horizon 2020 framework; one on migration-development nexus, another on alternative migration governance. Her areas of interest include international migration, irregular migration, externalisation of border management, social and public policy, the informal labour market and gender studies. She published articles in Geopolitics, New Perspectives on Turkey, Migration and Development.
Maissam Nimer obtained a PhD in sociology at Paris Saclay University in July 2016. In her thesis, she looked at the mechanisms of social and cultural selection that explain the inequality of access to higher education in Lebanon. Nimer’s current work at Koç University deals with the integration of Syrian refugee youth in Turkey. She is the recipient of a one-year Koç University Seed Grant and a Mercator IPC fellow at Sabanci University exploring the role of language instruction in integration of Syrian refugees in Turkey. She holds an MSc from the London School of Economics and BS from the American University of Beirut.
Maya Mamish is a counselling psychologist by training. She has years of experience of providing psychological support for refugee families affected by political violence and displacement and for humanitarian aid workers working in the field. Maya has also been involved in providing support for academic research projects related to refugee studies and emergency relief. Her contributions have covered a range of locations, including Syria, Turkey, Greece, France, Sweden, Yemen and the UK. Maya has recently completed her MSc in Social and Cultural Psychology at LSE and is currently working on a research project which considers the processes of integration and well-being of displaced Syrian youth living in Turkey. Maya’s research interests focus on exploring the institutional, cultural, and psychological practices which contribute to the formulation of refugee youths’ identities and their sense of social recognition.
Amal Abdulla is a PhD student at Koc University in the international relations department. She is also a research assistant at Migration Research Center at Koc University (MiReKoc). She is affiliated with the Syrian Youth Project (Tübitak-RCUK) as the Ph.D Researcher. She holds a master’s degree from Sciences Po Paris in Human Rights and Humanitarian Assistance with a focus on Middle Eastern Studies. As well as bachelor’s degree in history of international affairs from Paris-Sorbonne University (Paris IV). She has been engaged in advocacy and civil society activity for refugees in both France and Turkey.
Evin Millet was a post-doctoral Fellow at the Migration Research Center (MiReKoç), Koç University, Istanbul.
Birce Altıok is a PhD candidate at Koç University in the Department of International Relations and Coordinator of Migration Research Center at Koç University (MiReKoc). She received her MA in Human Rights Studies from Columbia University (2011) and BS in Global and International Affairs from Binghamton (SUNY) and Boğaziçi University (2010). She is currently working on her doctoral thesis at Koç University on forced migration activism, with a special focus on state-civil society relationships and the politics of migration. She was a PhD researcher in a TÜBİTAK project on mass refugee flows to Turkey and has publications on forced migration, foreign policy and migrant activism. She lectures in the departments of international relations and sociology on migration and human rights at Koç and Bilgi University.