Graduate Student Mentoring and Advising

Graduate Students

In Geography: Lily Herbert (2017-2020 MA, PhD ongoing, co-chair), Michelle Padley (2016-2019 MA, PhD ongoing), Betül Aykaç (2018-), Mary Biggs (2018-2020 MA, PhD in progress), Deanna Corin (2018-2021 MA, PhD in progress), Suad Jabr (2019-). Graduated: Murat Es (2006-2012), Nathan Swanson (2009-2016), Mike Dimpfl (2011-2016), Devran Koray Ocal (2015-2020).

In Global Studies and TransAtlantic Masters Program: Sophia Nissler (2020-). Graduated: Maura Kitchens West (2019-2022), Alexis Strang (2019-2021)


Doctoral and Postdoctoral Mentoring

Kamila Klingorova, (Ph.D. 2017). September 2016-February 2016, visited from Charles University in Prague, Regional and political geography to work on project on gender, religion, and everyday space.

Zeynep Türkyılmaz (Ph.D. 2009, UCLA History). UNC Sawyer Seminar Postdoctoral Fellow 2009-2010.

Undergraduate Students

Suad Jabr (Asian Studies and Geography, 2019). Queer Burden of Proof: A Critical Analysis of Exceptional Vulnerability, Authenticity, and Deservingness of Queer Syrian Refugees. (Highest Honors)

Marisa Breathewaite (Global Studies and Asian Studies, 2018). Making Space and Women’s Activism in the Arab World. (Highest Honors)

Alexis Strang (Global Studies, 2017). More Than a Pretty Face: How Turkish Magazines Function as Social Spaces. (Highest Honors)

Lily Herbert (Geography, 2016). ‘Is Hijab for Kazakh Girls?’: Shifting the Borders of Kazakh Nationhood and the Modern in Almaty, Kazakhstan. (Winner of the Best Undergraduate Thesis Award in Geography)

Leah Neal (Global Studies, 2013). Minorities, Mobilization, and Marginalization: Non-Majority Actors and the 2011 Tunisian and Egyptian Revolutions.

Amy Sarah Nunez (Geography, 2012). An Orientalist Appetite for India: The Commodification and Consumption of the “Other’s” Culture in the West.

Bethany Corbin (Global Studies, 2011). A Bleeding Sin: An Examination of Honor Killings in Turkey and Germany. Awarded the competitive Mary Turner Lane Award for Excellence in Research on Women’s Issues by a Senior (2011) and full scholarship to Wake Forest Law School.

Hannah Highfill (Global Studies, 2009). Beyond the Mosque: Religious Practice, Gender, and Space in an Istanbul Sufi Community. Accepted with scholarship to Islamic Studies MA program at Washington University in 2009.

Callie Peck (Global Studies, 2007). Female Political Bodies and Body Politics: Muslim Women’s Participation in the Development of the Palestinian Nationalist Islamist Movement.

Katherine Shields (Public Policy and Drama, 2006). Cracked Foundations: Urban Development and Changing Politics of Squatter Settlements in Istanbul. Accepted with scholarship to the joint Masters Program in Middle Eastern Studies and Public Heath at the University of Michigan in 2010.