Dr. Merih Angın is an Assistant Professor at Koç University's College of Administrative Sciences and Economics, where she lectures at the International Relations Department, and Computational Social Sciences graduate program. Previously, she was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs of Harvard University, a postdoctoral research fellow at the Blavatnik School of Government of the University of Oxford, and a visiting scholar at the Mortara Center for International Studies of the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. Dr. Angın holds a Ph.D. degree in International Relations/Political Science from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (IHEID), an M.Sc. degree in International Relations from METU, and a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from Bilkent University. Her research interests lie in the areas of International political economy, international development, international financial institutions, investment arbitration, computational social science including agent-based modeling, machine learning, and artificial intelligence (AI) governance. Her research on AI usage in social sciences has been awarded the EU's Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Individual Fellowship, as well as the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey’s International Fellowship for Outstanding Researchers.

Dr. Özge Karanfil is an Assistant Professor at the Business Administration Department of Koç University. She holds a B.Sc. and an M.Sc. degree in Industrial Engineering from Bogazici University, an M.Sc. in Physiology from McGill University, and a Ph.D. degree from MIT Sloan School of Management. With a background in industrial engineering, management, and health sciences, she is drawn to systemic problems of chronic nature, which encompass typical constraints and approaches with important managerial implications for the societal domain, coming from medical or non-medical contexts. Her training is multi-disciplinary; she has both collaborated and published with experts in management, systems sciences, health sciences, and engineering to solve complex managerial problems with important policy implications for the societal domain. One of Dr. Karanfil's main lines of research is the investigation of the universal problem of evidence-based development of sound and reliable clinical practice guidelines (CPGs). The theory and resulting models she builds are grounded in empirical evidence-base and use a mix of quantitative and qualitative methods and data.

Dr. Pelin Angın is an Assistant Professor of Computer Engineering at Middle East Technical University (METU). She holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Purdue University and a B.S. in Computer Engineering from Bilkent University. Between 2014-2016, she worked as a Visiting Assistant Professor and Postdoctoral Researcher at Purdue. Her research interests lie in the fields of cloud computing and Internet of things (IoT) security, distributed systems, 5G networks, blockchain and machine learning. She is among the founding members of the Systems Security Research Laboratory and an affiliate of the Wireless Systems, Networks and Cybersecurity Laboratory at METU. She serves on the editorial boards of multiple journals on IoT and mobile computing. Her work in security has been published at high impact journals including IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing, Computers & Security and IEEE Access among others.

Dr. Jack Loveridge is a historian of science and technology and co-founder of the Digital Rights in Society Initiative. He completed his Ph.D. at the University of Texas at Austin in 2017 and also holds an M.Phil. in International Development from Oxford University. His work centers on the role scientific research and technological innovation play in economic development, emphasizing how states and corporations conceptualize and govern human populations and environment. Focusing on South Asia in the era of decolonization, his recent publications have examined food security, population control, and rural development in north India during the Green Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s. Loveridge was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs in 2018-19 and lectured at the Cooper Union in 2017-18. He also held a dissertation fellowship at Yale’s International Security Studies Program in 2016-17 and a Fulbright- Nehru Doctoral Research Fellowship at the University of Delhi in 2014-15.

Dr. Hakan Emekçi holds a Ph.D. degree in Economics from Hacettepe University, a Master’s in Finance degree from London Business School (LBS), and a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering from Middle East Technical University (METU). Dr. Emekci has worked for the Turkish Treasury for ten years. During this period, he prepared Medium Term Economic Plans of Turkey for periods 2012-2015 with Macro-Economic Modeling Team and negotiated macroeconomic framework with IMF in the context of Article IV consultations. He represented Turkey in several international organizations including G20, EU, Responsible Finance Forum.

He is co-author of the book “Data Analysis with R” written in Turkish and gave “Data Mining with R” lectures to Auditors at Ankara Social Sciences University. His research interests lie in the areas of macro-economic modeling, machine learning (ML), artificial intelligence (AI), and Natural Language Processing (NLP).

Dr. Pelin Kılınçarslan is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Political Science and International Relations at İstanbul Aydın University. She received her PhD degree in Political Science and International Relations from Koç University. She holds a BA in Political Science from Bilkent University, and an MA in International Relations. She held a visiting researcher position in the Politics Department at the University of Manchester. She is currently working on her dissertation which explores the gendered dimensions of household indebtedness, with fieldwork in Greece and Turkey. Related to this, she has been granted Nermin Abadan-Unat Social Sciences Awards, Dicle Koğacıoğlu Article Awards, and the TUBITAK International Scholarship. Her primary research interests are in the field of international political economy with a particular focus on financialization, social reproduction, and gender.

Dr. Gökhan Ş. Güneş is a Research Assistant Professor at Bahcesehir University Center for Economic and Social Research (BETAM). He holds a Ph.D degree in Economics from Koç University. His research areas include monetary policy applications, their impacts on financial markets, and sentiment analysis.

Işık Topçu is a second year Computational Social Sciences master’s student at Koç University. She holds a BA in international relations from Galatasaray University. She has been granted the TUBITAK researcher scholarship in 2022. Her primary research interests lie in the areas of application of natural language processing to migration related social media data focusing on the sentiment against refugees. She is currently focused on the discussion surrounding the impact of artificial intelligence in achieving SDG’s.

Ayşegül Elbaşı is a master's student at ESIC Business & Marketing School and studying International Trade and Business. She graduated from Koç University and studied Economics along with a track program in Philosophy, Politics and Economy. She studied one semester at Sciences-Po for her Erasmus program. She is a volunteer of EFE Academy, which is a project about inequalities of opportunity in education and University of Oxford Covid-19 Government Response Tracker as a data contributor. She has also experienced internships in audit, sales and marketing areas.

Daniele Aglio is a Ph.D. student at the Economics Department of Koç University. He holds an M.Sc. degree in Economics from Bocconi University and Université catholique de Louvain. His research interests lie in the areas of Applied Macroeconomics and Labour Economics, and his doctoral research focuses on monetary policy and heterogeneity of firms, with theoretical extensions of New Keynesian models. During his academic studies, he worked as an intern at the OECD and as a research consultant at the European Central Bank. He currently manages a study centre on economic and social issues in his hometown in Italy.

Sinan Akgünay is a Ph.D. Candidate at the Political Science and Public Administration Department of Middle East Technical University. He holds an M.Sc. degree in Financial Engineering from Boğazici University and Bachelor’s degree in Economics from Bilkent University. His research interests lie in international political economy and public policy with specific focus on global finance policy, regulatory governance and, institutional and policy change. His current research topics include the global governance of multilateral lending and the multidimensional impacts of China’s global finance policy. Akgunay has a 7-year professional experience in the financial sector as a banker and consultant. He is the Co-Founder of ‘Mesele Ekonomi’, a research-based economics oriented online media platform and of XYZ Interactive, a public policy oriented digital communications company.

Gülce Elif Atabey is a Master’s student at the International Relations Department of the Koç University. She holds a High Honor Bachelor’s degree in International Relations from Bilkent University. She was an exchange student at the Pontificia Comillas University of Madrid. She had a number of internship experiences in state institutions such as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Grand National Assembly of Turkey as well as academic institutions such as CFPPR. She was an executive member of the Bilkent International Relations and EU Politics Society (BIEST) during her undergraduate studies. Her research interests lie in the areas of international political economy with a particular focus on the political economy of development, emerging and rising powers.

Ayça Deniz is a PhD candidate in Computer Engineering at Middle East Technical University. She received her M.Sc. degree at the same department in 2016, and B.S. degree in Computer Engineering at TOBB University of Economics and Technology in 2012. Her research interests include machine learning, evolutionary algorithms, and natural language processing. During her academic studies, she worked as a software engineer in the IT sector for more than four years.

Mustafa Yahşi is a Ph.D. student at the Economics Department of Koç University. He holds an M.Sc. degree in Economics and Management of Science from Humboldt University of Berlin and a B.Sc. degree in Industrial Engineering from Boğaziçi University. His research areas are Experimental Economics, Behavioral Economics and Machine Learning.

Batuhan Hökelek is a master’s student in Computational Social Sciences at Koç University. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Bilkent University. He had internship experiences in various institutions such as the UNHCR, Bilkent National Magnetic Resonance Research Center (UMRAM), and METU Informatics Institute. His research interests include Behavioral Economics and AI applications for social good.

Suleyman Baris Başaran is a first year Master’s student in Computational Social Sciences at Koç university. He holds a B.A. degree in political sciences at MEF University. Barış works as an urban researcher at the Kadıköy Municipality and his academic interests include sustainable urban growth, quality of life and urban modelling.

Alperen is a sophomore computer science student at Koç University. Apart from software development, Alperen is also engaged in studying political economy, social impact, and inclusion.

Semanur is a senior Law student at Koç University with a double major in Sociology. She is also a part of the Global Learning and Leadership for Sustainability track program. She has been working as an undergraduate research assistant in Public International Law for two years. Her main area of interest is socio-legal studies and she wants to contribute to the area with her work and support the human-centred policy making processes in the future.

Leyla Ayşegül Kandemir is a third-year Political Science and International Relations student at Boğaziçi University and she is also pursuing a minor degree in Economics with a particular interest in development economics, political economy and foreign policy formation. She is experienced in R Programming.

Uğurcan Şaşmaz is a junior student at the International Relations department. He is doing a double-major in Sociology, and minor in International Law. His research interests are comparative politics, international institutions, and political economy.

Aybike Şahinoğlu is a Sociology (B.S.) graduate from Middle East Technical University with a minor in Psychology. She holds a multidisciplinary perspective that applies statistical and programming tools to the analysis of the social world and behaviour. She is in the process of developing skills in computational methods to design better policy development processes that are focused on welfare and sustainability.

Arda is a sophomore undergraduate student at the Business Administration Department of Koç University and he is pursuing a double major in Industrial Engineering. He is working with Assistant Professor Merih Angın as a research assistant and he is a member of a research team at MA-CSSL working on the project “IMF Decides, Machine Learns: An AI Approach to IOs RA Application” as a data annotator. His interests are mainly developmental economics, urbanism, infrastructure and data analysis.

Faruk is a senior undergraduate student at the Economics Department of Koç University. He is doing a double major in Computer Engineering. He is interested in econometrics, macroeconomics and programming.

Arda Şendinç is a junior at Koç University. His majors are Economics and International Relations, and his minors are International Law and Psychology; likewise, he is specializing in International Political Economy. He took part in various work and study programs in school as mentor and teaching assistant, completed a project for Millennium Fellowship under the supervision of United Nations Academic Impact, and worked in diverse fields and companies such as Deniz Bank and BMW Automotive. In his leisure time, he devotes himself to piano, books, sports, and chess. The main goal and passion of Arda is to discover novel paths to acknowledge the political and economic differences in the world and to form theories and solutions for them. This is why it is essential and a great opportunity for him to able to analyze financial institutions, such as IMF, and take part as a research assistant in a project like IMF Decides, Machine Learns: An AI Approach to IOs.

Iris is a senior undergraduate student at the Industrial Engineering Department of Koç University and she is pursuing a double major in Economics. She is working with Assistant Professor Merih Angın as a research assistant and she is a member of a research team at MA-CSSL working on an ERC proposal related to AI development and SDGs. Her research interests include development, inequality, social impact and sustainability.

Volkan Bulut is a sophomore International Relations student at Koç University. He is doing a double major in Economics. He holds the position of the president at Koç University Economics and Politics Club. His fields of interest are foreign policy, Turkish politics, political economy and financial markets.

Mehmet Batuhan Candar is a senior Electrical and Electronics Engineering student at Bilkent University and he has a minor degree in International Relations. His research interests and expertise areas are international security, foreign policy analysis, data science and sustainable development.

Beyza Özdemir is a senior undergraduate Industrial Engineering student at Koç University, and she has a double major in Economics. She is in the track programs of Financial Engineering, Competition and Strategy, and Global Learning and Leadership for Sustainability.

Mehmet Ali Demir is a sophomore student in Koç University, his departments are International Relations and Economics (double major). He has been a research assistant of Professor Ziya Öniş. Mehmet's research interests are political economy, international financial institutions and international security.

Nisa is currently pursuing her Bachelor’s degree in International Relations together with Economics. She also holds a track program in Global Leadership and Sustainability. Her academic interests lie in the nexus of policy making and environmental, social governance. Throughout her undergraduate years, she was actively involved in social innovation projects focusing on social inclusion and sustainability. She is interested in creating meaningful change with future applications of technology in policy work.

Beyza is a senior undergraduate student at the Economics Department of Koç University. She is doing a double major in Business Administration and a minor in International Relations. She has been working with Assistant Professor Sevcan Yesiltas as a research assistant about public sentiment analysis by collecting data from Twitter. Also, she has been learning Python since last year. She believes that Social Sciences and Computational Sciences should be combined. Her research interests include Political Economy, Behavioral Economics, Big Data, Economic Growth and Development.

Hasan Kocabaş is a sophomore undergraduate student at the International Relations Department of Koç University. He is doing a double major in Economics at the same time. His research interests are macroeconomics, political economy, international institutes and diplomacy.

Anıl is a senior undergraduate student at the Economics Department of Koç University. He is doing a double major in Business Administration and a minor in International Relations and MAVA. He has been working with Assistant Professor Sevcan Yesiltas as a research assistant about public sentiment analysis by collecting data from Twitter. He has been learning Python since last year. He believes that different perspectives of these disciplines will positively affect academic studies. His research interests include Political Economy, Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Behavioral Economics.

Onurcan is an undergraduate junior at Bilkent University, Ankara. He majors in political science and pursuing a minor in software development. He co-founded the Bilkent Social Sciences Research Society, a society of interdisciplinary research. His research interests include social data science, international development, and CSS in general. He currently studies in Germany as an exchange student and in the process of application to master programs in social data science.

Alper Tanrıverdi is a senior Political Science and Public Administration student at Middle East Technical University. He is also doing a minor in the Department of Economics at METU. Alper is one of the alumni of the Data Science for the Public Good program founded by the University of Virginia and coordinated by TED University Center for Applied Data Science and Kodluyoruz in Turkey. His research interests are International Political Economy, Labor Economics and Policy, World Trade System, European Public Policy, and Eastern European Politics.