Humeyra Biricik

Humeyra Biricik is a doctoral candidate in Politics at Pembroke College who studies the interactions between political Islamists and Naqshbandi tariqas in Turkey, the role of women in Turkish politics, as well as the evolution of political speech used by the country's current president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. She is the recipient of the joint studentship between Pembroke and the Department of Political Science and International Relations, as well as the Pembroke Senior Studentship for the academic year 2023-2024, granting her a place in the Senior Common Room alongside esteemed faculty members. In conjunction with her SCR membership, Humeyra is the Academic Representative of Pembroke Middle Common Room, leading the college's peer-reviewed academic journal, termly academic symposium, and the 3CR talks where the members of the undergraduate and graduate community present their research with the faculty across all disciplines. She also serves as a lead mentor in the JCR/MCR mentorship program, designed to provide professional assistance and support to undergraduate students. As a part of her studentship responsibilities, Humeyra coordinates a series of politics talks at Pembroke College, in collaboration with Professor Stephen Whitefield, addressing pressing topics in British and global politics.

Humeyra is also affiliated with the Middle East Centre, and she is currently the co-organiser of the Middle East Politics Seminar Series and the Women's Rights Research Seminars alongside Professor Maryam Alemzadeh for the academic year 2023-2024. For questions related to the Middle East Politics Seminar Series, Women's Rights Seminar Series, Pembroke Academic Symposium, or Politics at Pembroke talks, you can reach her at humeyra.biricik@politics.ox.ac.uk.

Currently engaged with several academic collaborations, Humeyra was invited to present her work at several academic conferences, including the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies (BRISMES), Middle East Studies Association (MESA), International Studies Association (ISA), and American Political Science Association (APSA). She currently teaches Middle East Politics to undergraduate students at New College and Pembroke College. She also formerly taught at St Catherine's College as well as St Edmund's College and conducted admissions interviews for the upcoming Politics, Philosophy, and Economics (PPE) students during the 2022-2023 admissions cycle.

Before Oxford, Humeyra obtained an MPhil Degree from the University of Cambridge in Economic and Political Sociology. Her MPhil dissertation titled “Resurrecting God: Analyzing Wartime Desecularization in France, the Soviet Union, and Turkey” was awarded the Cambridge Department of Sociology Polity Prize, as well as the Wolfson College Jennings Prize for the best dissertation and the best overall mark. She earned her BA in Government, Economics, and Sociology with a focus on Comparative Politics from Georgetown University and successfully defended her honors dissertation, receiving a distinction and a department prize.

Alongside her academic endeavours, Humeyra is passionate about empowering women and reducing the gender gap in academia. Formerly, she worked for the Council of Higher Education in Turkey, where she worked on a project titled “She Figures 2021,” an initiative started by the European Commission to address gender inequality in academia and R&D sectors. She also worked at organisations, partnered with the Turkish Ministry of Family and Social Services to empower girls who are orphaned and under the foster care system in Turkey, and support women who were victims of intimate partner violence. Furthermore, Humeyra is a licensed fashion stylist with experience in professional styling and curating digital editorials.

Research

Humeyra's research interests include:

• Political Speech and Political Participation in Turkey

• Text Analysis and Natural language processing (NLP)

• Bayesian Statistics

• Political Sociology

• Gender dynamics in Turkey

Teaching

• 211 Middle East Politics