Gülşen Doğan is a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science and International Relations at Koc University. Her research interests lie in the intersection of migration, environmental governance, and democratic backsliding studies. In addition to her academic studies, she is also working in think tanks. Currently, she is working as a non-resident research assistant in Turkey program at the Middle East Institute (MEI), a Washington D.C.-based think-tank. Gülşen Doğan is also a project researcher at MiReKoç (Migration Research Center at Koç University) for the BROAD-ER project (Bridging the Migration and Urban Studies Nexus). It is a Horizon Europe Twinning grant, funded by the European Union in partnership with GRITIM-Pompeu Fabra University (Barcelona, Spain) and Universiteit van Amsterdam (Netherlands). At IstanPol, she also takes part in the projects of the Human and Social Development Program.

She graduated summa cum laude from Bogazici University with a B.A. in Political Science and International Relations & Sociology. During her undergraduate studies, she worked in various sectors and chaired the Center for European Studies Student Forum (CESSF). It is a forum that organizes academic meetings and publishes analyses and policy recommendations on the processes of EU politics and EU-Turkey relations. 

After her academic studies at Bogazici University, she received her M.A. degree from the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Koc University with a thesis on the institutional and ideological conditions for the extent of executive aggrandizement in Turkey and Brazil. She has presented her research at the conferences, organized by the Midwest Political Science Association (MPSA), the University of Vienna 6th Navigating Knowledge Landscapes’ Annual Conference “How do democracies die?, the 29th Annual Illinois State University Conference for Students of Political Science 2022, Aalborg University's Conference of Internationalization of Populism: Populism beyond the nation-state?  and OPUS (Young Scholars Initiative on Populism) Brown Bag Lunches.

She has lectured classes on the “Challenges for Global Governance: Democracy, Inequality and Environment” for the course “Introduction to Global Political Economy” and “Revisiting Brazil During the Bolsonaro Era: A Comparative Perspective” for the course of “Comparative Political Economy of Emerging Powers” at Koç University. As a teaching assistant, she has supported student learning by designing instructional resources and course materials as well as led lecture review classes for the courses “Turkish Foreign Policy”, “Comparative Political Economy of Emerging Powers”, “Introduction to Global Political Economy” and “Contemporary Issues in Turkish Politics” at Koç University.