Eylem Delikanlı is the founding director and executive director at RIT, a human rights advocate and an oral historian. She is the executive director at the Memory Museum for Historical Justice. She holds an MA in Sociology (City University NY) and an MA in Oral History (Columbia University). She is the co-author of the books Keşke Bir Öpüp Koklasaydım (with Özlem Delikanlı in Turkish, September 2013) and Hiçbir Şey Aynı Olmayacak (with Özlem Delikanlı in Turkish, November 2019) Her oral history research covers the 1980 Coup D’État in Turkey. She was a visiting scholar at the Institute for the Study of Human Rights at Columbia University and a researcher at Truth, Justice and Remembrance Program at Bosch Stiftung in Berlin developing the digital museum project focusing on the 1980 Coup. She is a member of Çocuklarız Bir Aradayız initiative – a group working towards building a collective memory of the Coup d’État in Turkey. As an oral historian, Eylem defines her work as oral history for historical justice and her research focuses on theories of post memory, collective memory, mass violence and silence.
Aylin Tekiner is a director at RIT, a multi-media artist, writer and human rights advocate. She is the co-director of the Memory Museum for Historical Justice. In her artistic practice, she works on the concepts of collective memory and justice with a focus on collective traumas and tragedies. She received her PhD from The Faculty of Educational Sciences, The Department of Cultural Foundations of Education at Ankara University in Turkey in 2008. Aylin has a book titled “Atatürk Statues: Cult, Aesthetics, Politics”, which was published in 2010-2014 by İletişim Yayınları (Turkey), based on her doctoral thesis. She worked on shadow theater techniques during her post-doc time at the Yale School of Drama between 2015-2016. Aylin opened solo exhibitions and participated in group exhibitions at home and abroad and she is a member of Collective Memory Platform, which was formed by the families of 28 victims of the political murders in modern Turkey, a member of Center for The Study of Social Difference at Columbia University as well as Çocuklarız Bir Aradayız initiative that focuses on the 1980 Coup D’État in Turkey.
Çağhan Kızıl is a director at RIT, an Associate Professor of Neurological Sciences at the Department of Neurology & Taub Institute, Columbia University and Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. He obtained his B.Sc. from Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey; M.Sc. from University of Göttingen, and Ph.D from Max Planck Institute Tübingen, Germany. His researches focus on stem cells and their therapeutic use in Alzheimer’s disease. As a scientist, Çağhan became a vocal public figure extensively talking, writing and sharing about the COVID-19 Coronavirus pandemic in Turkey. Besides his scientific publications, Çağhan also writes about academic freedom both in Turkey and abroad.
Gülce Nazlı Dikeçligil is a director at RIT, post-doctoral researcher at University of Pennsylvania, working in the field of sensory neuroscience. She received her undergraduate degrees in Biomedical Engineering and Applied Mathematics, and her doctoral degree in Neuroscience from Stony Brook University. Her research focuses on understanding how context and emotional states shape sensory perceptions. She has contributed to the projects “Talk Turkey Conference: Rethinking Life since Gezi”, Suzanne Lacy’s “Between the Door and the Street”, “We are here Ahparig, Global Photo Campaign”. Originally from Istanbul, she currently lives in Philadelphia.
Yektan Türkyılmaz a director at RIT, a researcher at the Central European Unıversity in Vienna, Austria. He received his PhD from Duke University Department of Cultural Anthropology. He taught courses at University of Cyprus, Sabancı, Bilgi, Duke and California State Universities addressing the debates around the notions of collective violence, memory making and reconciliation, and politics of music. He is working on his book manuscript based on his dissertation, Rethinking Genocide: Violence and Victimhood in Eastern Anatolia, 1913-1915, that addresses the conflict in Eastern Anatolia in the early 20th century and the memory politics around it. His new project concerns the emergence of the sound recording industry and its implications on the remaking of public space in the broader Ottoman and post-Ottoman world. Türkyılmaz also writes scholarly articles and commentaries addressing the ongoing political upheavals in Turkey. He is currently a research fellow at the Forum Transregionale Studien in Berlin, Germany.