Biography

Z. Ezgi Haliloglu Kahraman is a professor of urban planning and urban sociology. She is the founding head of the Department of City and Regional Planning, as well as the founding director of Center for Urbanization and Environmental Studies of Çankaya University in Turkiye. Currently, she is a visiting fellow at the Center for Trade and Economic Integration and a senior fellow at the Global Migration Center in the Geneva Graduate Institute, Switzerland. She received her bachelor’s, master’s, and PhD degrees from the Middle East Technical University (METU), Turkiye and completed her postdoctoral research as a fellow of EU Future Urban Research in Europe at Bauhaus University, Germany. She has received numerous academic honors, including awards for international publications, conference presentations, and the best dissertation in social sciences. Her national and international project experience includes serving as a project coordinator, researcher, and consultant in collaborations with leading national industrial companies, the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkiye, and Horizon Europe.

Prof. Kahraman teaches courses on urban sociology, migration and space, design with waste, research methods, and institutional and legislative framework in planning. Her main areas of interest and research include forced migration, international mobility and rural migration, socio-spatial consequences of urban renewal, community-based planning, and learner-centered education. Her recent studies focus on the diverse dimensions of the Syrian refugee experience in
Turkish cities, particularly their location choices, integration processes, housing practices, and the effects of disasters and pandemics on everyday life. In her work, she employs ethnographic and creative methodologies, combining qualitative fieldwork with art-based and participatory approaches. Her publications have appeared in high-ranked journals, including Habitat International, International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, Southeast Europe and Black Sea Studies, Journal of Housing and Built Environment, International Journal of Islamic Architecture, and Frontiers of Architectural Research.