Assoc. Prof. Dr. Şuay Nilhan Açıkalın

She is currently a faculty member in the department of International Relations at Ankara Hacı Bayram Veli University and also vice director of Institute of Graduate Programs. Dr. Açıkalın graduated from the department of International Relations at Bilkent University in 2012. She received her master’s degree with the thesis “Leadership in Chaos: Angela Merkel and Euro Crisis” at the Middle East Technical University in 2015. She obtained her PhD degree in 2020 from the same university with her thesis “Political Leadership and Foreign Politics: Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Angela Merkel”. She has been a guest researcher at Lancaster University in the U.K. and Humboldt Universitat zu Berlin in Germany within Jean Monnet Scholarship Program. Dr. Açıkalın works on leadership, Turkish foreign policy, chaos and complexity theory, Turkish-EU relations, women and girls in migration studies, climate refugees as well as gastrodiplomacy and fashiondiplomacy in theory and practice. She is also author of the book “Leadership Diplomacy in Turkish-German Relations”. Açıkalın is also interested in city and health diplomacy and she is member of advisory board of Turkish Healthy Cities Union. She is founding member of International Science Association and Dr. Açıkalın was participant of Bali Democracy Forum 2019, Asian Civilizational Dialogue in Beijing, China. She has constantly giving interviews to national and international media outlets.