Ayşe is a doctoral student in cultural anthropology and Fulbright Foreign Student Ph.D. grantee from Turkey. She earned her B.A. (2016) and M.A. (2019) in political science from Bilkent University and M.S. in Asian studies (2021) from Middle East Technical University. Ayse also studied at Korea University in Seoul, S. Korea as an exchange student and took social anthropology training at Ankara University in Turkey. Her research interests include political anthropology of space, consumption, culture, and identity, nation and state-building and modernity/modernization in Turkey. Her current research interest focuses on the politics and experience of rising popularity of ‘Korean culture’ in the Turkish context. Ayşe’s earlier works include her master’s project on the intersection of neoliberal urban policies and republican modernization perspective surrounding the municipal statues in downtown Eskisehir, Turkey, and her prize-winning research on South Korea’s utilization of public diplomacy under pandemic conditions with focus on the country’s smart city technologies and policies.