The Psychology of Peace and Violence Program is thrilled to welcome  DR. ÖZDEN MELIS ULUĞ as a post-doctoral research scholar for 2016-17.  Melis has particular expertise in non-violent social movements and the use of qualitative research methods.  She will be working with graduate students and faculty on a variety of projects related to non-violence, activism, and social movements during her year in the program.  

With a BSc major in Psychology and a BA minor in Studies in Politics from Middle East Technical University in Turkey, she received her MSc degree in Political Psychology with distinction from Queen’s University Belfast in Northern Ireland in 2011 and her PhD degree in Psychology from Jacobs University Bremen in Germany in 2016. She focused on the socially shared conflict understandings among different segments of society (e.g., politicians, scholars and journalists, and lay people) in the context of the Kurdish conflict in Turkey. She has also conducted follow-up studies in order to understand the role of intergroup contact in different status groups on conflict understandings and peace-related outcomes, such as attitudes toward reconciliation and peace.
In addition to intergroup conflict, reconciliation and peace, her research interests also include collective action and solidarity between disadvantaged groups. She has recently conducted both qualitative and quantitative studies on protestors’ motivations and their solidarity experiences in the context of Gezi Park protests in 2013 in Turkey. She expects to conduct more research on how disadvantaged groups such as women and Blacks experience contact with the advantaged groups in the context of protests and activism in the US.