Dr. Oya Dursun-Özkanca (University of Texas at Austin, Ph.D.) is College Professor of International Studies (Endowed Chair), Professor of Political Science, and Director of Honors Program and the International Studies Minor at Elizabethtown College, PA. In Fall 2021, she served as a Visiting Scholar at the Harvard University’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, working on her next book manuscript on the Eastern Mediterranean regional balance of power. Her research interests include Turkish foreign policy, transatlantic security, European Union, Eastern Mediterranean, South East Europe, and peace operations. She is the author of two new books, Turkey–West Relations: The Politics of Intra-alliance Opposition, published by Cambridge University Press in November 2019 and The Nexus Between Security Sector Reform/Governance and Sustainable Development Goal-16: An Examination of Conceptual Linkages and Policy Recommendations, published as part of the SSR Papers flagship series of the Geneva Centre for Security Sector Governance (DCAF) by Ubiquity Press in May 2021. The Turkish translation of her Turkey-West Relations book, Türkiye–Batı İlişkileri: İttifak İçi Muhalefet Siyaseti is published by Koç University Press in Turkey in 2023. She is also the editor of two books – The European Union as an Actor in Security Sector Reform (Routledge, 2014) and External Interventions in Civil Wars (co-edited with Stefan Wolff, Routledge, 2014) as well as a number of scholarly articles in leading peer-reviewed journals, such as International Affairs, Turkish Politics, Foreign Policy Analysis, Civil Wars, European Security, Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, French Politics, Perspectives on European Politics and Society, and Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies. She served as a Visiting Fellow of Research on South Eastern Europe (LSEE) at London School of Economics (LSE) in 2013, and received grants and fellowships from Georgetown University, the London School of Economics, the European Commission (multiple grants), the American Political Science Association (APSA), the University of Texas at Austin (multiple fellowships), Deutscher Academischer Austausch Dienst (DAAD), the European Union Studies Association, and the Mellon Foundation (multiple grants), the Elizabethtown College (multiple grants). She is the inaugural recipient of the Kreider Prize for Teaching Excellence at Elizabethtown College (2015), and the recipient of the Richard Crocker Outstanding Service to Students Award (2018, 2020), the Ranck Prize for Research Excellence (2022), the Outstanding Honors Professor Award (2025) at Elizabethtown College, and the Honors Professional of the Year Award in the Administrator Category (2025) from the Northeast Regional Honors Council.