Ahmet Evin

Ahmet Evin is the founding dean of Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Sabanci University. As director of education of the Aga Khan Trust for Culture, a Geneva-based international development foundation, he coordinated the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and in cooperation with that US-based resource center assisted in the development of architectural education in Asia and Africa. Prof. Evin initiated, with the European Commission's support, a policy dialogue on the future European architecture, EU's eastward expansion, its Mediterranean policy, and the customs union agreement with Turkey. His research interests include theories of the State and elites; Turkish political development; and democracy and civil society. He currently works on current foreign policy issues related to the European enlargement, its significance for Turkey and the region as well as its effect on Transatlantic relations. He received his BA in English and Comparative Literature from Columbia University in 1966. That same year he was named William Mitchell Fellow at Columbia where he continued his graduate work and received his Ph.D. in Middle East Studies and Cultural History in 1973. Prior to his appointment at Sabanci University, Dr. Evin taught at New York University, Harvard University, Hacettepe University (Ankara), University of Pennsylvania (where he also served as director of the Middle East Center), University of Hamburg, and Bilkent University in Ankara (where he headed the Department of Political Science).

Ronald H. Linden

Ronald H. Linden is Professor of Political Science at the University of Pittsburgh. A Princeton Ph.D. (1976), Dr. Linden is the author of "Balkan Geometry: Turkish Accession and the International Relations of Southeast Europe" Orbis (Spring, 2007) and  "EU Accession and the Role of International Actors," in Sharon Wolchik and Jane Curry Central and East European Politics:  From Communism to Democracy (Rowman and Littlefield, 2008).  During 1984-89 and 1991-98 he was Director of the Center for Russian and East European Studies at Pitt.  From 1989 to 1991 Dr. Linden served as Director of Research for Radio Free Europe in Munich, Germany.  He is currently the Associate Editor of Problems of Post-Communism and in 2008 edited a special issue devoted to “The New Populism in Central and Southeast Europe.” Dr. Linden has received research grants from the National Council for Eurasian and East European Research and its predecessor, the National Council for Soviet and East European Research, and from the International Research and Exchanges Board.  He has been a Fulbright Research Scholar, a Fulbright Distinguished Lecturer, a Research Scholar at the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies of the Woodrow Wilson Center, a Senior Fellow at the United States Institute of Peace under the Jennings Randolph Program on International Peace, and a Guest Scholar of the East European Studies Program of the Woodrow Wilson Center.

Kemal Kirisci

Kemal Kirisci is a professor at the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Bo?aziçi University, Istanbul. He holds a Jean Monnet Chair in European Integration and was also the director of the Center for European Studies at the university between 2002 and June 2008. He received his Ph. D. at City University in London in 1986. His areas of research interest include European integration, asylum, border management and immigration issues in the European Union, EU-Turkish relations, Turkish foreign policy, ethnic conflicts, and refugee movements. He has previously taught at universities in Britain, Switzerland and the United States. Kirisci has written numerous reports on immigration issues in EU-Turkish relations that can be accessed from www.carim.org.

Nathalie Tocci

Nathalie Tocci is Senior Fellow at the Istituto Affari Internazionali, Rome, Associate Fellow at the Centre for European Policy Studies, Brussels and Associate Editor of The International Spectator. She has held previous research positions at CEPS (1999-2003) and the European University Institute, Florence (2003-2007). Her research interests include European foreign policy, conflict resolution, the European neighbourhood, with a particular focus on Turkey, Cyprus, the Middle East and the South Caucasus. Nathalie is the winner of the 2008 Anna Lindh award for the study of European foreign policy.

Joshua W. Walker

Joshua W. Walker is a PhD doctoral candidate in Politics and Public Policy at Princeton University focusing on international relations and security studies. Joshua’s dissertation focuses on the role of historical memories in post-imperial successor states’ domestic and foreign policies with particular focus on Turkey and Japan. Walker is a fellow of the Pacific Council on International Policy, a former fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, a graduate fellow at the Liechtenstein Institute on Self-Determination and Bradley Foundation. Joshua is the co-founder of the Program on Religion, Diplomacy, and International Relations at Princeton and the Young Professions in Foreign Policy in New York. Prior to Princeton, Joshua completed a Master’s from Yale University in International Relations and received two graduate certificates in International Security and Middle East studies.  Joshua completed a year long Fulbright Fellowship in Ankara, Turkey where he researched this country’s foreign and security policy, particularly its European Union aspirations and North Atlantic Treaty Organization membership, in relation to questions about its national and cultural identity.  He received his BA from the University of Richmond in Leadership Studies and International Economics. 

Juliette Tolay-Sargnon

Juliette Tolay-Sargnon is completing her Ph.D in political science and international relations at the University of Delaware. Her dissertation looks at Turkish approaches to immigration, and studies the historical and cultural sources of these complex attitudes and policies.  A French national, Ms Tolay-Sargnon has also studied at Sciences Po in Paris, from which she has received a B.A and M.A, as well as at INALCO, where she received an M.A in Turkish studies.  She has studied or conducted research in Turkey, Tajikistan and Iran. She has authored a number of papers and a book chapter on migration flows in the Middle East and North Africa.  Her research at the Academy will deal with the movement of population in and out of Turkey and the implications of migration for Turkish foreign policies.

Sinan Ülgen

Sinan Ülgen graduated in 1987 from the University of Virginia with a double major in computer sciences and economics. He undertook graduate studies at the College of Europe in Brugge, Belgium where he received, in 1990,   a master’s degree in European economic integration. He then joined the Turkish Foreign Service as a career diplomat and worked for two years at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Ankara at the United Nations desk. In 1992, he was posted to the Turkish Permanent Delegation to the European Union in Brussels where he became a member of the Turkish negotiations team for the Turkey-EU Customs Union.  In 1996, Ülgen was posted to the Turkish Embassy in Tripoli where he spent the rest of the year.  Upon his return to Ankara , Mr. Ülgen resigned from the Foreign Service and started his consultancy practice. He is the author of numerous publications including a book entitled “The European transformation of modern Turkey ” co-authored with Kemal Dervis in 2004 and a recent book entitled “Handbook of EU negotiations”. He is a regular contributor to Turkish dailies and his opinion pieces have also been published by international media such as The International Herald Tribune, Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, European Voice and Le Figaro as well as think tanks such as the World Economic Forum, Center for European Reform, Center for European Policy Studies and the Atlantic Council of the US. A founding partner of Istanbul Economics, he is also the chairman of the think tank Center for  Economics and Foreign Policy Studies  (www.edam.org.tr).  

Hugh Pope

Hugh Pope is since 2007 the Turkey/Cyprus Project Director for International Crisis Group, the conflict-prevention organization. Based in Istanbul, he writes reports on EU-Turkey relations, Cyprus and Turkey’s ties with its neighbors. Pope was previously a foreign correspondent for 25 years, most recently spending a decade as a Turkey, Middle East and Central Asia Correspondent for The Wall Street Journal. Mr. Pope received a B.A. in Oriental Studies (Persian and Arabic) from Oxford University. Mr. Pope has written TURKEY UNVEILED: a History of Modern Turkey (London 1997, a New York Times "notable book"), and SONS OF THE CONQUERORS: the Rise of the Turkic world (New York 2005, an Economist magazine "book of the year"). His forthcoming book, DINING WITH AL-QAEDA: Three Decades Exploring the Many Worlds of the Middle East will be published in March 2010 (New York: Thomas Dunne/St Martins Press).

Michael Thumann

Michael Thumann has joined the Transatlantic Academy as a Bosch Public Policy Fellow for the month of January.  During his stay at the Academy he will be working on the issue of changing political elites in Turkey and the Russia-Turkey relationship.

An experienced journalist and author, he is the chief editor for the Middle East of Die Zeit.  Based in Istanbul, he covers the Arab Middle East, Turkey, Central Asia.  Prior to his posting in Istanbul, he served as Die Zeit’s Foreign Editor from 2001-2007, and as the Moscow correspondent of Die Zeit from 1996-2001, reporting on Russia’s relations with the Islamic populations of the Caucasus and Central Asia. He has also served as the political editor of Die Zeit on southeastern Europe.  He studied at the Free University, Berlin, Columbia University and the Leningrad State University and was a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

His books include:

Der Islam und der Westen, Berliner Taschenbuch-Verlag, 2003
Land ohne Unterleib, in: Russland und der Kaukasus (Fischer-Weltalmanach 2005)
La puissance russe. Un puzzle à reconstituer?, Paris, 2003
Das Lied von der russischen Erde. Moskaus Ringen um Einheit und Größe, Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart/München 2002;

Katinka Barysch

Katinka Barysch is deputy director of the Centre for European Reform, a London-based foreign policy think-tank. She has written extensively about Russia, Turkey, Central and Eastern Europe and about all aspects EU enlargement. She also works on European economic reforms, globalization, energy questions and EU institutional change. Katinka has acted as an advisor to the EU Select Committee of the House of Lords, the World Economic Forum and other organizations, as well as EU governments and a number of financial institutions and business federations.
Katinka joined the CER in July 2002 as chief economist and became deputy director in 2007. Before that, she was an analyst and editor for the Economist Intelligence Unit in London, specializing in Eastern Europe and Russia. Until 1998, she worked as a consultant in Brussels, where she was also involved in formulating the European Commission's strategy towards the East European candidate countries. Katinka gained an Masters of Science in International Political Economy with distinction from the London School of Economics and a BA in Political Science, Economics and Law from Munich University.

F. Stephen Larrabee

F. Stephen Larrabee (USA) is a Senior Staff member at RAND in Washington, D.C. and holds the RAND Corporate Chair in European Security.  He has a Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia University and has taught at Columbia University, Cornell University, New York University, the Paul Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Georgetown University, George Washington University and the University of Southern California.  Before joining RAND he served as Vice President and Director of Studies of the Institute of East-West Security Studies in New York from 1983-1989 and was a distinguished Scholar in Residence at the Institute from 1989-1990.  From 1978-1981 Dr. Larrabee served on the U.S. National Security Council staff in the White House as a specialist on Soviet-East European affairs and East-West political-military relations.

He is author of NATO’s Eastern Agenda in a New Strategic Era, co-author with Ian Lesser of Turkish Foreign Policy in an Age of Uncertainty, co-editor with Zalmay Khalilzad and Ian O. Lesser of The Future of Turkish-Western Relations, co-editor (with David Gompert) of America and Europe:  A Partnership for A New Era (1997), author of East European Security After the Cold War, (1994), editor of The Volatile Powder Keg:  Balkan Security After the Cold War,(1994), co-editor (with Robert Blackwill) of Conventional Arms Control and East-West Security (1989) and editor of The Two German States and European Security (1989).

Helmut Schmidt

Helmut Schmidt served as Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany from 1974 to 1982, and has been Co-publisher of DIE ZEIT since 1983. Mr. Schmidt had joined the Social Democratic Party (SPD) in 1946. From 1949 to 1953 he worked for the government of the city-state of Hamburg in the State Ministry for Economy and Transport. From 1953 to 1961, he was member of the Bundestag. From 1961 to 1965 he was Minister of the Interior of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, and then got re-elected in 1965 to the Bundestag. Previous to becoming Chancellor, he had also served as Minister of Defence and Minister of Finance, as well as briefly as Minister of Economics and as acting Foreign Minister. Mr. Schmidt studied economics and political science and graduated in 1949. With Takeo Fukuda he founded the Inter Action Council (IAC) in 1983. Helmut Schmidt is member of the Board of Trustees of the ZEIT-Stiftung Ebelin und Gerd Bucerius, and Honorary Chairman of the German National Foundation, which he founded in 1993. Mr. Schmidt is author of numerous articles and books.

Nature of the fellowship

With this fellowship, the ZEIT-Stiftung Ebelin und Gerd Bucerius would like to promote transatlantic research by specifically strengthening the economic perspective within the group of researchers of our joint project. Furthering economic expertise in politics and society has been and continues to be the desire of Former Chancellor Helmut Schmidt. He is considered as one of the most distinguished and influential Germans as well as one of the most popular German political figures.

Thomas Straubhaar

Thomas Straubhaar is the Director of the Hamburg Institute of International Economics (HWWI) and Professor of Economics at the University of Hamburg. Research Interests: International economic relations, governance, education and population economics. He is a member of the Expert Advisory Board for Integration and Migration (Sachverständigenrat deutscher Stiftungen für Integration und Migration). Straubhaar has the following affiliations: Policy Fellow at the Institute for the Study of Labor, Bonn, Member of the Council for Foreign Trade Theory and Policy at the Verein für Socialpolitik,  Director at the Hamburg European College, an institute for integration research of the University of Hamburg, Member of the Council for Economic Policy at the Verein für Socialpolitik, Ph. D. Advisor at the Friedrich-Naumann Foundation, Member of the Council for Population Economics at the Verein für Socialpolitik, Member of the Academy of Sciences Hamburg, Responsible for programme planning of economics at the Bucerius Law School, Hamburg, President of the ARGE (Arbeitsgemeinschaft deutscher wirtschaftswissenschaftlicher Forschungsinstitute - Working Group of the German Economic Research Institutes); Executive board member of the ARGE, since 2001CEPR Research Fellow, Centre for Economic Policy Research, London. Straubhaar completed his PhD at the University of Berne, Switzerland.