Baris Alan is a Ph.D. student in Political Science and Graduate Assistant for Social Innovation at Tulane University. He is awarded the Fulbright scholarship for his Ph.D. study at Tulane. He holds a B.Sc. in Political Science (top student of the class) from Middle East Technical University (Turkey) and an M.A. in International Development from the University of Kent (Belgium). He was a Jean Monnet Scholarship from the European Union during his M.A. study.
Alan’s research interests are in the subfield of international political economy, with a focus on the weaponization of interdependence. His dissertation project examines the conditions that enable regional powers to use global networks as weapons.
Alan has a background in international development with a focus on socially inclusive bottom-up and participatory development practices. He finds social innovation as one of the most crucial tools to pull individuals out of poverty and to push towards development.