Faculty Members

Ersel Aydınlı

Professor

Office: A302
Phone: +90 312 290 34 22
E-mail: ersel@bilkent.edu.tr
Personal page: http://www.bilkent.edu.tr/~ersel

Çağlayan Başer

Assistant Professor

Office: A303
Phone: +90 312 290 26 77
E-mail: caglayan.baser@bilkent.edu.tr
Personal page: https://www.caglayanbaser.com

Çağlayan Başer’s research explores the links between domestic and international politics, conflict, and gender politics. Her work has been published in World Politics, Security Studies, and Alternative Politics. Her monograph, titled “Public Preferences, Gender, and Foreign Support for Armed Movements,” is under contract with Cambridge University Press. She previously held a tenure-track position as Assistant Professor of Political Science at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Public Affairs and Citizenship. Prior to that, she taught at New York University Abu Dhabi, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and Loyola University Chicago, where she earned her Ph.D. in Political Science with a specialization in International Relations and Comparative Politics.

Ekrem T. Başer

Assistant Professor

Office: A314
Phone: +90 312 290 20 73
E-mail: ekrem.baser@bilkent.edu.tr 
Personal page: https://ekrembaser.com

Ekrem Başer is a scholar of international relations and political economy, focusing on solutions to commitment and information problems. His research explores reputation and signaling dynamics, status concerns, and the emergence of enforcement institutions, with applications in conflict, international political economy, and domestic politics. He received his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Tuğba Bayar

Lecturer

Office: A325-A
Phone: +90 312 290 14 63
E-mail: tugba.bayar@bilkent.edu.tr

Tuğba Bayar is a Lecturer in the International Relations Department at İ.D. Bilkent University. She holds a Ph.D. in International Relations from Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg, Germany. Her research centers on international regimes, international law, human rights, and international cooperation, with a regional focus on the Middle East—particularly Iran. Dr. Bayar’s work has appeared in journals such as All Azimuth, Turkish Studies, Southeast European and Black Sea Studies, and Global Governance. She has received several prestigious research grants, including the TÜBİTAK 3501 Career Development Grant for her project on unilateral withdrawals from multilateral treaties, the European Commission’s Jean Monnet Module Grant for her work on international and European human rights protection, and the TÜBİTAK 1001 Grant for her ongoing research on the compliance of right-wing populist governments with international treaty regimes.

Pınar Bilgin

Professor

Office: A315
Phone: +90 312 290 21 64
E-mail: pbilgin@bilkent.edu.tr
Personal page: http://www.bilkent.edu.tr/~pbilgin

ChaeEun Cho

Instructor

Office: A311
Phone: +90 312 290 22 13
E-mail: chaeeun.cho@bilkent.edu.tr

Çağla Demir

Visiting Assistant Professor

Office: A318
Phone: +90 312 290 22 33
E-mail: cagla.kilic@bilkent.edu.tr

Çağla Kılıç is an Assistant Professor in the Department of International Relations at Bilkent University. She holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from Arizona State University, where she specializes in international relations and comparative politics. Her research lies at the intersection of public opinion, foreign policy analysis, political psychology, role theory, and the international politics of China. She has received numerous fellowships and awards throughout her academic career, including a Fulbright Ph.D. scholarship, the Stephen G. Walker Graduate Fellowship, and the Graduate College Excellence Award at Arizona State University. She has experience in research projects funded by TUBITAK and a National Science Foundation-funded panel study on the integration of Syrian refugees in Europe and Turkey. Her international experience includes academic exchanges and internships at institutions such as the European Parliament in Latvia, the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Turkey, and the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TİKA) in Ethiopia. She is fluent in Turkish and English, professionally proficient in Chinese, and has a working knowledge of French and Ottoman paleography. Her research was published in the Journal of Global Security Studies.

Tore Fougner

Associate Professor

Office: A328C
Phone: +90 312 290 31 42
E-mail: fougner@bilkent.edu.tr

Tore holds a Ph.D. in International Relations from Keele University. He is specialized in the field of Global Political Economy and teaches courses also on global environmental politics. He has a keen interest in theory (especially critical theories) and his research tends to have a transdisciplinary flavor. His current research focuses on nonhuman animals and human-animal relations in world politics.

Eliza Gheorghe

Assistant Professor

Office: A305
Phone: +90 312 290 20 70
E-mail: eliza.gheorghe@bilkent.edu.tr

Samuel J. Hirst

Assistant Professor

Office: A308
Phone: +90 312 290 21 77
E-mail: samhirst@bilkent.edu.tr
Personal Page: https://www.samueljhirst.com/

Sam Hirst writes and teaches about twentieth-century international history. His first book, Against the Liberal Order: The Soviet Union, Turkey, and Statist Internationalism, 1919-1939 came out with Oxford University Press in 2024. Currently, he is working on the political economy of the Cold War, with a focus on questions of international trade and development in late-1950s Turkey. 

Sırrı Hakan Kırımlı

Associate Professor

Office: A317
Phone: +90 312 290 14 68
E-mail: kirimli@bilkent.edu.tr

Seçkin Köstem

Associate Professor

Office: A316
Phone: +90 312 290 13 12
E-mail: kostem@bilkent.edu.tr
Personal page: https://kostem.bilkent.edu.tr

Seçkin Köstem specializes in International Political Economy with a specific focus on economic statecraft and development finance. In terms of regional expertise, he has published on Turkey, Russia and the post-Soviet space. He is currently a co-editor of Review of International Political Economy (2023-26) and the IPE Section Chair of the International Studies Association for 2025-26. His research has been published in journals such as RIPE, Foreign Policy Analysis, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, Global Policy, Third World Quarterly, Europe-Asia Studies and other outlets. He has been awarded the Outstanding Young Scientist Award of the Turkish Academy of Sciences (TÜBA-GEBİP) in 2023, the Young Scientist Award of The Science Academy (BAGEP) in 2023, the Incentive Award of The Turkish International Relations Council in 2022, and the Distinguished Teaching Award of Bilkent University in 2021. He is events coordinator at the Center for Foreign Policy and Peace Research in Ankara. He received his Ph.D. degree (2016) in Political Science from McGill University, and MA (2010) and BA (2008) degrees in International Relations from Bilkent University.

Tudor A. Onea

Assistant Professor

Office: A306
Phone: +90 312 290 23 43
E-mail: tudor.onea@bilkent.edu.tr

Özgür Özdamar

Professor

Office: A328B
Phone: +90 312 290 19 01
E-mail: ozgur@bilkent.edu.tr
Personal page: http://www.bilkent.edu.tr/~ozgur

Özgür Özdamar is Professor and Chair of the Department of International Relations at Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey. He was a visiting Fulbright Scholar at the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Johns Hopkins University in Washington, DC during the 2019-2020 academic year. His research focuses on foreign policy analysis, leadership studies, forecasting, and IR theories. His articles have been published in journals such as European Journal of IR, International Affairs, Political Research Quarterly, International Studies Review, Terrorism and Political Violence, Foreign Policy Analysis, Social Science Quarterly, Middle East Policy, and Journal of Southeast European and Black Sea Studies. He currently serves as director of research at the Center for Foreign Policy and Peace Studies of Bilkent University. His last co-authored book, Leaders in the Middle East and North Africa: How Ideology Shapes Foreign Policy, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2023 and received the Distinguished Book Award by the Foreign Policy Analysis section of the International Studies Association. Özgür Özdamar will spend the 2025-2026 academic year as a visiting fellow at the European University Institute’s Robert Schuman Centre in Florence.

Can Öztaş

Lecturer

Office: A312
Phone: +90 312 290 22 15
E-mail: can.oztas@googlemail.com

Dr. Can Öztaş is a jurist and diplomat whose academic work bridges international law, human rights, and critical legal theory. He currently serves as Head of Digital and Institutional Communications at the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where he leads strategic communication and public diplomacy initiatives. Alongside his diplomatic role, he teaches at Bilkent University and Ankara University, engaging students with interdisciplinary and critical approaches to international law.

He holds an LL.M. in Public International Law from King’s College London and a Ph.D. in Law from Birkbeck College, University of London. His areas of interest include the politics of international courts, legal rhetoric and memory, digital sovereignty, and the aesthetics of resistance. His work draws on critical legal studies and postcolonial theory, particularly Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL), and engages with thinkers such as Martti Koskenniemi, Costas Douzinas, Anthony Anghie, Jacques Derrida, and Hannah Arendt.

Dr. Öztaş moves fluidly between diplomacy and academia, forging links between power and reflection, governance and resistance—anchoring his work in critical inquiry and the art of interdisciplinary teaching.

Efe Tokdemir

Associate Professor

Office: A304
Phone: +90 312 290 16 01
E-mail: efe.tokdemir@bilkent.edu.tr
Personal page: http://www.efetokdemir.com

Dr. Efe Tokdemir earned his PhD in Political Science from Binghamton University (2017), and BA in Boğaziçi University (2012). His research interests include conflict processes, foreign policy and public opinion, and political use of force. His works have so far appeared in leading journals of the field such as Journal of Conflict Resolution, Journal of Peace Research, Political Behavior, Conflict Management and Peace Science, Terrorism & Political Violence, International Interactions. Dr. Tokdemir’s book “Battle for Allegiance: Governments, Terrorist Groups, and Constituencies in Conflict” has been published by University of Michigan Press in 2020. Dr. Tokdemir received “Young Scientist Award (BAGEP)” from Science Academy of Türkiye in 2019, “Award for Outstanding Young Scientist” (GEBIP) from Turkish Academy of Sciences in 2020, The Sakip Sabanci International Research Award in 2021, The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Türkiye Incentive Award in 2023, and International Relations Council of Türkiye Young Scholars Award in 2024. His project on non-violent counterinsurgency strategies has been recently funded by TUBITAK National Young Leader Researchers Program for 2022-2025. Dr. Tokdemir has previously been a postdoctoral fellow of ISA James N. Rosenau Fellowship (2017-2018), visiting fellow at The Ohio State University’s Mershon Center for International Security Studies (2016-2018) and visiting scholar at The University of Chicago’s CPOST program (2024-2025). 

Crystal Whetstone

Assistant Professor

Office: A327-A
Phone: +90 312 290 22 52
E-mail: crystal@bilkent.edu.tr
Personal page: https://crystalwhetstone.com

Crystal Whetstone specializes in gender, peace, violence and security with a focus on motherhood. She has examined peaceful motherhood movements in the global South and recently turned to violent motherhoods. Her work has been published in International Affairs, the International Feminist Journal of Politics, Third World Quarterly, Global Studies Quarterly, the Journal of Asian Security and International Affairs and Women Studies International Forum.

Dain Yoo

Personal page: https://dain-yoo.github.io/

Dain Yoo is a political scientist whose research spans international relations and comparative politics. Her research interests include global authoritarianism, political violence, and public opinion, with a regional focus on the Middle East and North Africa. Her work has been published in International Interactions and Democratization. She holds a Ph.D. in Government from Georgetown University, an M.A. in International Relations from Seoul National University, and a B.A. in Arabic and Political Science from Binghamton University.

Ömer Zarplı

Assistant Professor

Office: A313
Phone: +90 312 290 21 25
E-mail: zarpli@bilkent.edu.tr
Personal page: https://omerzarpli.weebly.com/

Omer Zarpli received his Ph.D in Political Science from the University of Pittsburgh. His research focuses on economic sanctions, intra- and inter-state conflict, and public opinion. His work, which uses observational and experimental methods, is published at, among others, International Studies Quarterly, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Journal of Peace Research, International Interactions, Conflict Management and Peace Science. He teaches courses on international relations, conflict studies, research methods, and quantitative data analysis.