Leadership
The Honorary President
Ken Booth is presently a Distinguished Research Professor in the Department of International Politics at Aberystwyth University (AU), President of the David Davies Memorial Institute of International Studies, Editor-at-Large of the journal International Relations, and Honorary President of CESRAN International.
Previously, he was the inaugural E.H. Carr Professor and Head of the International Politics Department at AU, as well as Chair and first President of the British International Studies Association (BISA). Visiting academic positions have been held at the universities of Antwerp (Belgium), Cambridge (UK), Dalhousie (Canada), the National University of Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur), and USC (California). Research and advisory positions have been held, among others, at the US Naval War College (Newport, RI) and The Joseph Rowntree Charitable Foundation (York, UK).
Booth has published many journal articles, book chapters, and over 25 books. Recent publications include International Relations Theory Today (co-editor and contributor) and ‘International Relations: The Story So Far’ (International Relations, Vol. 33 No. 2, 2019). He has delivered keynote addresses and conference presentations in approximately 30 countries, and his work has been translated into a dozen languages.
Among other honours, Booth was the recipient in 2004 of the International Studies Association’s ‘Susan Strange Award’ in recognition of his contribution to International Studies, and in 2018, the recipient of BISA’s ‘Distinguished Contribution Prize’, for long-term services to the profession. In 2006, he was elected as a Fellow of the British Academy (FBA).
Director-General
Ozgur Tufekci founded CESRAN International on 01 November 2008. He is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of International Relations at Karadeniz Technical University in Turkey.
He holds an MA in International Studies from the University of Sheffield, UK and a PhD in Sociology and International Relations from Coventry University, UK. His primary research interests are [Turkish] Eurasianism, Nation-Building, Theories of Nationalism, Geopolitical Studies, Rising Powers and Regionalism. Currently, he teaches at the undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral levels, focusing on the methodological foundations of regionalism, rising powers, and nationalism.
He is the Editor-in-Chief of The Rest: Journal of Politics and Development, a biannual, peer-reviewed journal; Political Reflection Magazine; Novus Orbis: Journal of Politics and International Relations; and he serves as a reviewer for a number of international peer-reviewed journals, as well.
He received a nomination for the British Council’s Education UK Alumni Awards in 2016 for his entrepreneurial activities. He also received the Outstanding Researcher Award from Karadeniz Technical University in Turkey in 2018.
Learn more about Ozgur Tufekci »
Deputy Director-General
Rahman Dag is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Public Administration at Zonguldak Bulent Ecevit University in Turkey. He obtained his BA from Yeditepe University in Istanbul. Then, he got a master’s degree from the Department of Near and Middle Eastern Studies, SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies) in London. He was awarded a Doctor of Philosophy degree from Exeter University, Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, in the field of Middle East Politics. In addition, he is one of the founding members of CESRAN International (www.cesran.org) and acts as the Deputy Director of Cesran International. His affiliation with Cesran continues as book review editor of the Rest: Journal of Politics and Development (The Rest Journal). Right after finishing his higher education, He was appointed as a research assistant in 2014 and, within a month, promoted to Assistant professorship at Adıyaman University. He worked for the University for more than six years. Once he was awarded an associate professorship by the Higher Education Council in Turkey, he got a promotion by working as an Associate Professor at Zonguldak Bülent Ecevit University. His expertise revolves around Middle East politics, specialising in the Kurdish question in the region and Turkish foreign policy. His latest interest is in great power politics and the accommodation of rising or regional powers in world politics and the international system. He can be reached at rahman.dag@cesran.org.
Management
Ebru Birinci, Research Director
She is the Research Director at CESRAN International. Ebru Birinci is a PhD candidate in the Faculty of Political Science at Lomonosov Moscow State University. She received her master’s degree from Karadeniz Technical University. She is an interview editor of the Political Reflection Magazine. Her research interests are foreign policy studies, Russian foreign policy, and Russian-Israeli relations.
Email: ebru.birinci [@] cesran.org
Ekrem Ok, Staff Director
Ekrem OK is the Staff Director of CESRAN International. He is currently a Lecturer in the Department of Foreign Trade at Agri Ibrahim Cecen University in Turkey. He holds an MA in IR from the Karadeniz Technical University, Turkey. He is also a PhD candidate in the Department of International Relations at Karadeniz Technical University, Turkey.
Email: ekremok [@] cesran.org
Fellows
Antony Ou, Associate Fellow
Mr Antony Ou is currently a lecturer at the HKU School of Professional and Continuing Education (HKU SPACE).
He holds a Bachelor of Social Sciences in Policy Studies and Administration (First Honours) from the City University of Hong Kong and a Master of Philosophy in Government and Public Administration from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He is now studying for a PhD in political theory at Cardiff University, specialising in Confucian textual interpretation. His primary research interests are modern Confucianism, policing and sex workers and Hong Kong New Territories Politics.
Before 2020, he served as the Programme Coordinator of the Associate Degree in Communication, Public Relations, and Journalism at HPSHCC, and also as the Programme Manager of five Bachelor’s Degree programmes in Social Sciences at the University of Hull and Edinburgh Napier. Over the past decade, he has taught various modules in politics, sociology, social welfare, criminology, cultural studies, and philosophy. His publication, “Just War and the Confucian Classics: An Analysis of Gongyangzhuan,” has also seen extensive writing for CESRAN since 2008.
Emrah Atar, Associate Fellow
Emrah Atar holds a PhD in Development Policy and Management from the Global Development Institute at the University of Manchester, focusing on the impact of the refugee crisis on public service delivery in hosting countries, such as Turkey. Emrah worked as a senior tutor at the University of Manchester and is currently a lecturer at Recep Tayyip Erdogan University. His focus topics and research interests further escalate his prospects in politics, governance, migration, policy development, human resource management, and urbanisation policies. Emrah is an Assistant Executive Editor of the Political Reflection Magazine and Commissioning Editor of the E-International Relations.
Email: emrah.atar [@] cesran.org
Gulnoza Ismailova, Associate Fellow
Gulnoza Ismailova is Vice-Rector for Science and Innovation at the University of the World Economy and Diplomacy in Uzbekistan. She is the project head of the Tashkent Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence for European Studies. Professor Ismailova was also elected as a member of the Central Election Commission of the Republic of Uzbekistan on August 24, 2019. Dr Gulnoza Ismailova was one of the winners of the European International Women’s Leadership Awards 2021.
Hakan Uslu, Associate Fellow
Hakan Uslu received his Ph.D. degree in the Applied Economics programme at Auburn University in the United States. He obtained a master’s degree in Economics from Auburn University, USA. He has been an associate professor of economics at Samsun University in Turkey since 2017. His research mainly involves the application of econometric methods to economic and political phenomena. He has written about topics in political economics, environmental economics, and financial economics. He teaches microeconomics and mathematical economics. He is also working as an area editor of the Political Reflection Magazine in Economics.
Email: hakan.uslu [@] cesran.org
Marco Marsili, Associate Fellow
Graduated in Political Science and International Relations and in Institutional communication, both cum laude, Dr Marsili holds a PhD in History, Security Studies and Defence, and two advanced post-graduate diploma degrees: History, Security Studies and Defence; Political Science and International Relations: Security and Defence. He holds research positions at major civil and military institutions in Portugal, where he conducts research in the broad area of international relations, security, and defence, with a specific focus on international law, international humanitarian law, fundamental human rights, terrorism, counter-terrorism, hybrid warfare, and unconventional conflicts. Dr Marsili has a NATO and EU security clearance, and he was recently engaged as a cyber defence and cyber security expert in two studies commissioned by the European Defence Agency and in a cyber defence platform for real-time threat hunting, incident response and information sharing financed by the European Commission within the first European Defence Industrial Development Programme. He is also the principal investigator of an international project supported by the Fund for Bilateral Relations/EEA Grants. He is the recipient of international grants, fellowships, prizes and awards, among which stands out the Seal of Excellence of the European Commission in 2021. Dr. Marsili is a reviewer and article editor for international scientific publishers and journals. He participates in and attends numerous international conferences and workshops, chairs panels, and serves as a member of scientific and organising committees. Dr Marsili also held corporate positions and served as a public official and election observer for the OSCE/ODIHR. He is an outstanding member of the International Society of Military Sciences (ISMS), the International Political Science Association (IPSA), the affiliated Portuguese Political Science Association (APCP), the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR), and the European Sociological Association (ESA). info[at]marcomarsili.it – @MarcoMarsili1
Mark Meirowitz, Associate Fellow
Dr. Mark Meirowitz is a Professor of Humanities at SUNY Maritime College in New York. He is an expert in Turkish Foreign Policy and U.S.-Turkish relations. Dr Meirowitz has lectured and written extensively on these (and related) subjects. He frequently appears in U.S. and Turkish media to analyse these issues, as well as other issues related to American foreign policy and International Relations. Dr Meirowitz has been a panellist and moderator at numerous academic conferences and panels, including IEPAS 2021, where he presented a keynote speech on “American Foreign Policy: Turkish-American Relations After Afghanistan”, the Turkey Focus Group of the National Defense University/Institute of National Security Studies, at the annual conferences of the Transatlantic Studies Association and at many other venues. He organised the international conference at SUNY Maritime College to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Gallipoli/Canakkale Campaign. Previously, he completed the SUNY Levin Fellowship, during which he taught English conversation to Turkish Faculty while in residence at Istanbul Technical University. Dr Meirowitz teaches a wide variety of courses at SUNY Maritime College, including American Foreign Policy, American History and Constitutional Law. He is also a lawyer.
Murat Cemrek, Associate Fellow
Murat ÇEMREK, Prof. Dr., Instructor and Chair in the Department of International Relations at Necmettin Erbakan University, Konya, Turkey. He graduated from the Department of Political Science and Public Administration at Middle East Technical University (1996) and completed his MA (1997, Thesis; “Özal’s Politics with Special Reference to Religion”) and PhD (2003, Thesis; “Formation and Representation of Interests in Turkish Political Economy: The Case of MÜSİAD [Independent Industrialists’ and Businessmen’s Association]”) respectively. Çemrek had his post-doc research “Turkey-EU Relations: The Question of Human Rights at the Collegium Budapest: Institute for Advanced Studies, Hungary (2004). He taught in several universities: Necmettin Erbakan, Selcuk (Konya, Turkey), Police Academy (Ankara, Turkey), Atatürk Alatoo (Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan) Al Farabi (Almaty, Kazakhstan) and gave several seminars in numerous universities: Karamanoglu Mehmet Bey (Karaman, Turkey), International Hoca Ahmet Yesevi Turkish-Kazakh University (Turkistan, Kazakhstan), Oslo University (Norway), University of Szczecin (Poland); Central European University (Budapest, Hungary); and Oradea University (Romania). He is a member of various international academic organisations and journals as well as an organisation committee member and attendant to varied conferences, summer schools and workshops in thirty countries. Çemrek also worked at different administrative layers as Vice-Chair, Chair and Department Erasmus Coordinator in the Department of International Relations at Selcuk University from September 2004 to September 2012, as well as the Founding Director of the Eurasian Research Institute in Almaty (International Hoca Ahmet Yesevi Turkish-Kazakh University) from September 2012 to June 2014. He has also been the Erasmus+ Coordinator and the Director of Erol Güngör Turkic Diaspora Research Centre at Necmettin Erbakan University from July 2014 to November, respectively, till February 2018. He has also been the academic representative for Turkish Scholarship interviews in Iran, Georgia, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Palestine and Mongolia during 2012-2019. His research interests include globalisation, Turkish Foreign Policy, the Middle East, and Central Asia, as well as Islam and politics.
Orkhan Valiyev, Associate Fellow
Head of the Department of Political Science and Philosophy at Khazar University. He was appointed as Assistant Editor at the Khazar Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences. He received a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Baku State University in 2009. In 2012-2014, he received a master’s degree from the Department of Political Science at the Academy of Public Administration. In 2014, he won a state scholarship from Turkey for doctoral studies. He started his doctoral education in 2015 and received a doctorate in philosophy from the Faculty of Political Sciences of Sakarya University, Institute of Social Sciences, unanimously defending the scientific work “The Nationalization Process of Tsarist Azerbaijan: 1850-1920.” In the 2018-2019 academic year, he was engaged in pedagogical activities at the Department of Political Science and International Relations of Western Caspian University. In the 2021-2022 academic year, he resumed his pedagogical activity at the Department of Political Science and International Relations of Western Caspian University. In addition, in the relevant academic year, he began working as an adjunct teacher in the master’s department at the Department of Sociology, Baku State University.
Sharifullah Dorani, Associate Fellow
Sharifullah Dorani completed his PhD on the US anti-terrorism war in Afghanistan and the ‘Greater Middle East’ at Durham University. His Master’s degrees and undergraduate degrees are from UCL and the University of Northampton in Law, International Human Rights, and Creative Writing. He is the author of ‘America in Afghanistan: Foreign Policy and Decision Making from Bush to Obama to Trump’, I.B. Tauris/Bloomsbury, 2019. His first novel – provisionally entitled Little Moscow of Kabul – is due to be published in late 2020. He left Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover in 1996, returning frequently to carry out research. He frequently lectures on the history of US policy in the region and speaks fluently in numerous regional languages, including Pashto, Dari/Farsi, Hindi, Urdu, Russian, and English. Currently, he is the South Asia and Middle Eastern Editor at CESRAN International. He may be reached at sharifullah.durrani@cesran.org and follow on Twitter @DrSDorani
Researchers
Rabia Buyukpinar, Research Fellow
Rabia Büyükpınar graduated from the Department of Political Science and Public Administration at Kırıkkale University in 2018. In the same year, she began her master’s degree at Kocaeli University and completed it at Zonguldak Bülent Ecevit University. She is currently a PhD student at Zonguldak Bülent Ecevit University, where she also serves as a research assistant. Her areas of interest revolve around the governance concept, and in relation to this concept, she is also interested in local governments, Turkish politics, mega projects, and political history.
Email: rabia.buyukpinar@beun.edu.tr – rabia.buyukpinar@cesran.org
Muharrem Bayrak, Research Fellow
Muharrem Bayrak completed his undergraduate and master’s degrees in International Relations at Karadeniz Technical University, earning his MA in 2022. He commenced doctoral studies in the International Security and Terrorism programme in 2023. Between 2022 and 2024, he served as a researcher at the KTU Strategic Research Centre, and since 2024, he has been editor of Trabzon Studies Journal. His research interests encompass international security, cultural diplomacy, geopolitics, and the projection of soft power.
Email: mhrrmbyrk96@gmail.com – muharrem.bayrak@cesran.org
Alexandra Judge, Research Fellow
She is one of the blog editors at CESRAN International. She studied International Relations at Lancaster University and is currently finishing her Master’s in Politics there. Alex is looking forward to stepping into the world of research, with her focuses being on diaspora politics, protest, policy, and the Middle East.
Email: a.judge@lancaster.ac.uk – alexjudge@sky.com
Previous Researchers
- Desiree di Marco, Research Fellow
- Ruhullah Afshar, Research Fellow
- Rukiye Patan, Research Fellow
- Sitong Lin, Research Fellow
- Tugche Veys, Research Fellow