Director

Prof. Mehmet Fatih Aysan is the Director of the Marmara University Center for Population and Social Policies and a faculty member in the Department of Sociology. He received his PhD in Sociology from the University of Western Ontario in 2011 and served as a lecturer at the same institution between 2010 and 2012. Between 2012 and 2020, he was a faculty member in the Department of Sociology at Istanbul Şehir University and served as Director of the Graduate School of Social Sciences from 2016 to 2020. His main research interests include demography, family, economic sociology, and social policy, with a particular focus on labor markets, population structures, and the impact of social policies on social welfare. His research has been supported by TÜBA, the European Union, the European Research Council, IDRC, the British Council, and TÜBİTAK.

https://avesis.marmara.edu.tr/maysan

Deputy Director

Prof. Asil Özdoğru is the Deputy Director of the Marmara University Center for Population and Social Policies. He is a faculty member in the Department of Psychology at Marmara University and Head of the Division of Developmental Psychology. He received his PhD in Educational Psychology from the State University of New York at Albany. His academic work focuses on child development, adult education, applied psychology, and team science.

https://avesis.marmara.edu.tr/15236

Deputy Director

Assoc. Prof. Halim Baş is the Deputy Director of the Marmara University Center for Population and Social Policies. He is a faculty member in the Department of Labor Economics and Industrial Relations at Marmara University. His research focuses on social policy, youth, international students, skilled labor, and brain drain, with publications in nationally and internationally indexed journals.

https://avesis.marmara.edu.tr/14878

Member

Asst. Prof. A. Sena Sezgin is a member of the Marmara University Center for Population and Social Policies and a faculty member in the Department of Psychology, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Marmara University, where she also serves as Vice Chair of the department. Her academic work focuses on giftedness perception and policy, labeling, narcissism, school psychology, willpower, and executive functions.

https://avesis.marmara.edu.tr/14628/egitim

Member

Asst. Prof. Ayşe Yetiş-Bayraktar is a member of the Marmara University Center for Population and Social Policies and a faculty member in the Department of Sociology. She received her PhD in Sociology from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 2013. Between 2013 and 2015, she worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Sociology at Boğaziçi University. From 2016 to 2020, she served as a faculty member in the Department of Sociology at Altınbaş University and as Vice Dean of the Faculty of Economics, Administrative and Social Sciences. Her academic work focuses on social stratification, sociology of work, and time sociology. Her article titled “From the Shop Floor to the Kitchen Floor” was a finalist for the Rosabeth Moss Kanter Award.

https://avesis.marmara.edu.tr/ayse.yetis

Assoc. Prof. Fatma Özge Ünsal graduated from Marmara University, Department of Preschool Education and Child Development, in 2006. She completed her master’s and doctoral studies in early childhood education at the same university. Her doctoral research focused on the effects of psychological resilience programs designed for preschool children on social skills and problem behaviors. She completed part of her dissertation writing process at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia in Italy. She currently serves at the Department of Primary Education, Division of Preschool Education, Marmara University. Her research interests include preschool children’s social skills, problem behaviors, psychological resilience, emotional regulation, early childhood education programs, and children’s literature.

https://avesis.marmara.edu.tr/ozge.unsal

Dr. Muzaffer Şenel is a visiting researcher at the Marmara University Center for Population and Social Policies. His work focuses on world order, security studies, European studies, and comparative foreign policy. He conducts research particularly on Europe’s policies toward the Middle East, the politics of the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea region, Turkey’s foreign policy, and debates on the global order. His academic work is situated within the fields of international relations and regional politics.

Prof. Olga Tofaniuk is a Visiting Researcher at the Marmara University Center for Population and Social Policies. Her academic work focuses on demographic change, public finance, and social policy. She examines the economic impacts of pension systems, tax policies, and demographic transition processes. Using quantitative methods and simulation-based models, she conducts comparative analyses across European countries. Her research contributes to understanding how demographic transformations shape social policy design and fiscal sustainability. Her main research areas include European integration, demographic transition economies, and simulation models for tax and pension reforms.

https://orcid.org/0009-0008-8832-1381

Asst. Prof. Berna Ekal Şimşek is a faculty member in the Department of Sociology at Marmara University. She received her PhD in 2015 from EHESS–Paris, Department of Social Anthropology and Ethnology. Her academic work focuses on women’s studies, family and kinship relations, and the anthropology of institutions and politics. Her research examines gender relations and the everyday functioning of social institutions, employing comparative and qualitative research methods that contribute to sociological and social anthropology scholarship.

https://avesis.marmara.edu.tr/berna.ekal

Müberra Aksu graduated from the Department of Sociology at Istanbul Sabahattin Zaim University and completed a minor program in Psychology at the same institution. She is currently a master’s student at the Department of Sociology, Marmara University, at the thesis stage. Her research interests include family, population studies, social policy, and life satisfaction.

Hilal Ceylan graduated from the Department of Sociology at Marmara University in 2019 and holds a minor certificate in Guidance and Psychological Counseling. She completed her master’s degree at Marmara University in 2024 with a thesis titled “The Effect of Participation in Civil Society on Life Satisfaction” and is currently continuing her doctoral coursework at the same university.