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About me

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Bebek Park, Istanbul, July 2025
Photo credit: Duygu Başaran Şahin

I bet you want to know the phonetic spelling of my name! My first employer in the U.S. came up with Dwee-goo and I think it's a good one.

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I am a social scientist and a lecturer in the fields of sociology, demography, and aging. In broad strokes, my work focuses on various types of inequalities experienced by older adults. I think of myself as someone who cares deeply about the issues related to population aging. I believe we can all think more about what it means and will mean to have a larger proportion of older adults in our lives both at the individual and societal level. I also love working on new areas and truly enjoy interdisciplinary research. In more recent years, I conducted quantitative research on financial fraud awareness in the United States.

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I have a diverse academic background. I got my undergraduate degree in sociology from Galatasaray University in Istanbul. Then, I studied at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris and got a master's degree in Population, Health and Social Policy. Oui je parle français! I completed my Ph.D. in Sociology at the CUNY Graduate Center and analyzed older adults' economic and psychosocial outcomes during the Great Recession. I am a proud former fellow of the CUNY Institute for Demographic Research where I received my demography training.

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I was born and raised in Turkey and have been living in New York City since 2010. I have considerable professional experience working at non-profits in Turkey and the U.S.

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