I was born in Adana, Turkey. I lived in Adana and Mersin and attended Tarsus American High School before I moved to Istanbul for college. When I was five, I wanted to be the prime minister, when I was ten I was pretty sure I was going to be a computer scientist. When I was 15, I was trying to decide between being a geneticist and an architect. To the dismay and disapproval of my physics teacher, who believed that no person capable of long division should study social sciences and/or humanities, I settled on Political Science at 17.* I had been wondering why politics did not make any sense since I was three. Alas, I couldn't find an answer. Nonetheless I had a great time in college and learned a lot of things I did not know that I did not know, I did not know before college.

At the moment, I am a doctoral student at the University of Georgia, Athens and I'm working on my dissertation on a topic my adviser finds interesting and I - and possibly only I - find fascinating (if you're interested, or unwilling to admit that you're not, here's the link to a short summary). My family, physician and various cab drivers in Philly also appear to be interested, but I am not sure whether they are being sincere or just trying to humor me. I try to combine qualitative and quantitative research methods, field research, public opinion literature, discourse studies, political psychology and welfare state literature in my dissertation. There is a little bit of everything or as Professor Markus Crepaz would call it, it's a melange. I prefer melange to "mess" (which it isn't, it is very well structured!). I cannot call myself an institutionalist or a culturalist because I am a bit of both. I love comparing (and contrasting) different countries, especially how their cultures and institutions affect each other. I guess that makes me a comparativist more than anything else, but I don't want to play favorites here. I also have a very special relationship with International Relations.

I enjoy getting to know about new cultures, learning new languages, reading, writing and telling people what I know (A.K.A. teaching) and being around smart people (and being considered smart by association). When I realized, universities pay people for doing these things, I decided to be an academic. I enjoy reading papers, magazines and fiction (particularly novels and poetry), listening to the radio, watching movies and going out with friends when I procrastinate. (As anyone who knows a graduate student can attest, we don't have spare time like the rest of humanity. Instead we specialize in procrastination.) I also travel, volunteer and exercise as a part of my procrastination regimen. Although I have no time for cooking these days, I'm a good cook. Since I don't have time, you won't get to test this claim, so I can comfortably say I'm a great cook. I've also been a vegetarian for almost a decade. I forgot why I stopped eating meat, although the initial reason might have been a dare (or a documentary about animals, or food poisoning).

I worship (in a very secular fashion) Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Weber, Marx, Carr, Said, Polanyi and Sen, not necessarily because I agree with what they say, but for the simple and selfish reason that, without these and other similarly brilliant people, there'd be no social science and I would have to work at a marketing department at some corporation, which (as I learned by trial and error) is not exactly a fulfilling career for a person who finds reading about electoral engineering truly intriguing and marking assignments with red ink really fun (at least the first few assignments). After having served as a serf in the academic system for years, I am now in the job market with the hope of advancing to the vessel level and being paid in cash for my services to the academic lords. If you want to learn about my scholarly activities, feel free to click on any link you want on this web page. It's free!

Since they are likely to be the only ones to visit this website, I have to state that I have the most wonderful family, friends, students, adviser and potential employers in the whole wide world.


*I believe that my physics teacher would be much more forgiving of my career choice, had he known how much statistics I have had to use in my research.