Ebru conducts joint doctoral research in political science and sociology at Vrije Universiteit Brussel and Universiteit Antwerpen and she is a YUFE (Young Universities for the Future of Europe) scholar. Her research interests are: social and political philosophy, constitutional law, comparative politics, nationalism, sustainability and circular economy, socio-ecological systems theory, anthropology of food and agriculture, economic anthropology, land-use, aquatic systems, natural disasters and crisis management.

She obtained an MSc degree in Sustainable Development from KU Leuven, Belgium, where she also studied Social and Cultural Anthropology. She holds a BA degree in Political Science and Public Administration and a part-time conservatory degree in Music from Bilkent University, Turkey. She speaks Turkish, English, Dutch, French, and German and she is a beginner in Greek, and Portuguese.

PhD Research under the supervision of Prof. Dr.Dave Sinardet and Prof. Dr. Anne Bergmans 

The (re)-constructions of nationhood: Political discourse analysis of the flood, earthquake and wildfire post-disaster scenes of Belgium, Turkey, and the United States

Disasters generate extensive disruptions and uncertainty in social order; prompting political, social, and material forces to converge in the recovery process. As part of this restorative process, the idea(s) of nationhood is often mobilised to make sense of the situation and improve the efficacy of organising the recovery. Unlike the subtle and everyday manifestations of nationhood, post-disaster contexts provide a stage for the explicit and deliberate performance of nationhood. Within this, political discourse becomes a critical tool for the interaction and reconstruction of the contesting symbols and narratives tied to the imagined nation. By implementing critical discourse analysis (CDA), this doctoral research explores the competing idea(s) of nationhood being imagined, mobilised and (re)constructed through political discourse in the post-disaster contexts of the flooding in Wallonia, Belgium, 2021, earthquake in Southeastern Turkey in 2023, and the wildfires in Hawaii, USA in 2023.