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About Assoc. Prof. sylvıa tiryaki 

Dr Sylvia Tiryaki is a scholar and lawyer specialising in the fields of Human Rights and International Public Law. A triple alumnus of the Comenius University in Bratislava, she graduated with an MA in Law and a JD in European Union Law from the Faculty of Law, and a PhD in European Studies and Politics/Political Theory from the Faculty of Social and Economic Sciences. Dr Tiryaki began her career practising law in Slovakia until 2003, when she moved to Turkey, where she started to be active as an academic and member of civil society.

During her academic and professional career in Turkey between 2003 and 2018, she worked as an Assistant professor at the Department of International Relations, Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences at the Istanbul Kültür University, where she also held various administrative positions. Later, Dr Tiryaki was a full faculty member at the Department of International and European Law of the Pan-European University’s Faculty of Law in Bratislava. She holds an Associate Professor position at BISLA, where she has been lecturing since 2019. Throughout her years in academia, Dr Tiryaki has delivered lectures related to International Public Law, Human Rights, International Relations, European Union, History of Political Thought, Diplomacy, Foreign Policy and the Middle East.

Dr Tiryaki has published and edited books and articles in a number of national and international academic journals and newspapers. She has been invited to speak at platforms such as the United Nations, European Parliament, Wilton Park Conference, LSE, Brookings Institute, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, GMF, EuroMeSCo, The Bosphorus Conferences, and many others.

In addition to her academic work, Dr Tiryaki utilises her expertise as an active member of civil society. She worked as a senior research fellow and project coordinator for the leading Turkish think tank (founded in 1994), Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation (TESEV), between 2003 and 2008. Her work for the organization contributed to the final version of the Annan Plan for the reunification of Cyprus. Later, she moved from TESEV to the Global Political Trends Center (GPoT Center) in Istanbul, which she co-founded in 2008, and served as deputy director until 2018. She was a regular columnist for the Turkish Daily News (Hürriyet Daily News) from 2006-2009.

As an expert on the politics of the Middle East and Turkey, she was an advisor for the Slovak Minister for Foreign Affairs. During that time, working at the Office of the Minister, she prepared complex foreign policy and security analyses on given topics. Currently, she is an Associate Fellow for the Middle East at GLOBSEC.

In 2021, she became the Chairwoman of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Slovakia, where she actively promotes and raises awareness of human rights and the overall improvement of human rights. Earlier in 2023, Dr Tiryaki was officially appointed by the Minister of Justice as a member of the Council of the Government of the Slovak Republic for Human Rights, National Minorities, and Gender Equality. Since 2024, Dr Tiryaki has served as a board member of the Democracy and Human Rights Education in Europe Network (DARE).

Dr Tiryaki is a member of SAK (Slovak Bar Association), ILA (International Law Association), RUSI (The Royal United Services Institute), BIAA (The British Institute at Ankara), MESA (The Middle East Studies Association), IPSA (International Political Science Association), APSA (American Political Science Association), UİK-IRCT (The International Relations Council of Turkey. Furthermore, she worked as an advisor for the World Handicapped Foundation and was a board member of World Disability Union and Human Security Collective.

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