Seren Selvin Korkmaz is co-founder and co-director of the IstanPol Institute. She held the position of founding executive director from January 2018 until November 2023. She is an affiliated researcher at Stockholm University’s Institute for Turkish Studies (SUITS).

Between 2023 and 2024, Dr. Korkmaz served as a political specialist for the U.S. Department of State at the U.S. Consulate General in Istanbul, advising on Turkish politics. In 2024, she was honored as a Turkey Europe Future Fellow, an initiative by Mercator Stiftung and TÜSİAD. In 2023, she received the prestigious Marshall Memorial Fellowship from the German Marshall Fund of the United States. Her prior roles include non-resident scholar at the Middle East Institute in Washington, D.C., Fox International Fellow at Yale University, Mercator-IPC Fellow at İstanbul Policy Center of Sabancı University, and research fellow at the Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul. As a political analyst, she works closely with international and domestic stakeholders, providing expert insights on a wide array of issues, with a particular focus on Turkey’s internal political dynamics, emerging trends, and key developments.

A political scientist by training, Seren Selvin Korkmaz holds a PhD in Political Science from Stockholm University. She earned her B.A. and M.A. from the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Boğaziçi University. Korkmaz has taught Turkish and Middle Eastern politics at Stockholm University and served as a guest lecturer at esteemed institutions, including the U.S. Department of State’s Foreign Service Institute. Her research focuses on populism, political parties, voting behavior, election strategies, opposition dynamics in autocratic regimes, and the relationship between foreign policy and domestic politics.

Dr. Korkmaz has published numerous commentaries, policy papers, and academic articles and coordinated various projects on Turkey’s political dynamics. She is a frequent political commentator in both Turkish and international media outlets, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Financial Times, Deutsche Welle, and the Wall Street Journal. She has delivered invited talks at prestigious institutions such as Stanford University, the German Marshall Fund of the United States, IFRI, ISPI, the Delphi Economic Forum, and Brandweek İstanbul, among others. Korkmaz has organized and participated in meetings with Turkish, European, and U.S. stakeholders to enhance transatlantic relations.

Since 2013, Dr. Korkmaz has been actively involved in various academic and non-governmental initiatives, aiming to connect civil society, academia, and public policy through her research and policy recommendations. Up until 2017, she served as the Turkey director for the Political and Social Research Institute of Europe (PS:EUROPE), an institute she co-founded, based in Austria and Turkey. She is currently a member of several working groups on Turkey–EU relations, Turkey–U.S. relations, and the future of democracy.