TPQ Team

Cemile Çetin became the administrative supervisor of the TPQ and joined the board of directors of the Social Participation and Development Foundation in 2009. Cemile became involved in the ARI Movement in 1995 where she worked as an organizer, assistant, office manager, and accountant within the civil society division of the movement until 2008. During her tenure at ARI Movement, she participated in the logistical organization of a number of important projects such as the “Human Rights for Everyone” and “Young Women are Ready for Involvement” programs.

Erhan Arslan joined TPQ in March 2017. He is also a PhD candidate and a research associate at Koç University. He previously worked for Open Society Institute, Istanbul Bilgi University, CAPA Global Network. He is a graduate of Bilgi University, Boğaziçi University and Queen Mary University of London. He is also a founding member of Co-Opinion Global Network.

D. Nigar Göksel became the Chief Editorial Advisor at TPQ in Fall 2015, after holding the position of Editor in Chief for 13 years since the journal’s founding in 2002. She is currently the Senior Turkey Analyst at the International Crisis Group. Prior to joining Crisis Group, Nigar was a Senior Analyst at the European Stability Initiative (ESI) between 2004-11, where she covered Turkey and the Caucasus. She is a regular contributor to the German Marshall Fund’s “On Turkey” series and writes frequently for Al Jazeera International. Nigar is also registered as an independent consultant for political analysis and project management. She has designed a range of reconciliation and civil society capacity-building initiatives in Turkey and the South Caucasus. Previous to her current affiliations, Nigar acted as country director for IREX (International Research and Exchanges Board), project manager at TESEV (Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation) and international relations coordinator at the ARI Movement. From 1998 to 2000 she worked at the Azerbaijan Embassy in Washington, DC, and thereafter briefly at the Washington office of the Turkish Industry and Business Association (TÜSİAD-US).

Zeynep Alemdar joined TPQ as an editorial advisor in 2014. Zeynep is a professor of Political Science and International Relations at Okan University, Istanbul, where she also heads the European Union Research Center. Her research analyzes Turkish politics through the interactions between domestic and international factors, focusing mostly on civil society actors and bottom-up movements. She is passionate about women's involvement in foreign policy and is the leader of the Women in Foreign Policy Initiative (WFP14) in Istanbul that encourages and promotes women's participation in foreign policy mechanisms. She was an EASI-Hurford Next Generation Fellow for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in 2014, specializing in bottom-up efforts in conflict resolution, and a visiting professor at the Center for Turkish Studies and the Mark O. Hatfield School of Government at Portland State University in 2011. She is also an advisor to the editorial board of the International Studies Perspectives.

A. Cihan Sarıkaya joined TPQ in 2012 as an editorial assistant, becoming associate editor in 2013. He recently became managing editor in January 2015. He graduated from the Department of Public Administration in the Faculty of Political Sciences at Marmara University in 2009. Currently, he is pursuing his master’s degree in International Relations at Galatasaray University. His studies are focused on security issues such as military interventions, energy politics, threats to global security, and the relevance of military organizations. He speaks English and French.

Arda Batu has been an editorial advisor for TPQ since 2009. His career began in 2004 at Yeditepe University’s Political Science and International Relations Department where he served as a research assistant. In 2006, Arda joined the ARI Movement becoming a board member in 2008 for five years before leaving in 2013. He transitioned to the corporate sector with HB Consultancy Group in 2007 whilst continuing his professional affiliation with the university. His keen interests in government relations and strategic communications led him to London-based consultancy, Aleph Consulting in 2010, and then to Istanbul-based regional corporate communications firm, StratejiCo in 2012. Arda was appointed as secretary general to Turkish Enterprise and Business Confederation (TURKONFED) in June 2014.

Fikret Erkut Emcioğlu was managing editor at TPQ from 2012 to 2014 and is currently an Editorial Advisor. After receiving his master’s degree at the University of Paris II - Panthéon–Assas in 1998, he spent seven years as a journalist and narrator at the Turkish Language Department within Radio France Internationale (RFI). Between 2004 and 2006, and in 2011, he carried out various researches on the social, economic, and legal aspects of EU-Turkey integration at the European Stability Initiative (ESI), a Berlin-based think-tank. Since 2007, he has been the legal adviser for international contracts for the OKAN Group in Turkey. He speaks English and French.