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 School of Geography and the Environment

University of Oxford

 The Transport Studies Unit

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Part of the School of Geography and the Environment
Nihan Akyelken

People

Nihan Akyelken

Academic Profile

Nihan completed her BSc in Economics and Philosophy (2005) and MSc in European Political Economy (2007) both from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). Having worked at the LSE Public Policy Group and several other academic institutions, consultancies and NGOs both in the UK and in Turkey, Nihan joined the TSU in October 2008. Whilst working at TSU, Nihan also completed her DPhil thesis entitled Capital and Development in Social and Cultural Contexts in 2009-2011. She is on the organising committee of the School of Geography and the Environment's Technological Natures: Materials, Cities, Politics research cluster. In addition to working on research projects funded by the European Commission and the British Academy, Nihan has held several academic awards from Wolfson College, University of Oxford, Alan Nesta Ferguson Foundation, and LSE Academic Award Schemes.

Current Research

Nihan's research is theoretically informed from the principles of political economy, mobilities, and economic geography. With extensive methodological tools including both qualitative and quantitative methods as well as futures research methods, her current research ramifies into three strands:

1. Policy scenario-building and futures research

This research strand concerns the interconnected nexus of transport, climate change, globalisation, energy sources, and regional political institutions. Nihan conducted research in the context of sustainable transport and energy systems for two EU-funded projects; Log-Man and Freightvision. The Log-Man work studied the tension between globalisation and EU institutions through a scenario analysis of the logistics trends to 2035 in the context of the global division of labour. For Freightvision, Nihan was involved with defining the vision for 2050 and the policy action plan for this vision in scenario development on how to reach a desirable future in the context of freight transport and economic growth. More information on these projects can be found on the Freightvision and Log-Man websites. She is currently working on illustrating the results of the Log-Man following the tenets of phronetic social science.

2. Political and economic geographies of transport infrastructure development

This strand represents her theoretical and empirical investigation of the economic and noneconomic dynamics of regional economies to clarify the links between physical capital, labour markets, and sociocultural conditions. Her doctoral thesis entitled Capital and Development in Social and Cultural Contexts looked at the association between the female labour force and public investment in transport infrastructure in Turkey. The study demonstrated how the interplays between the economic, physical, political, cultural and socioeconomic attributes of regions significantly affect how individuals benefit from the investments. This required a holistic approach to the study of urban environments, bringing together different research strands in political economy, economic geography, feminist geography and mobilities.

3. Policy options for a resource-efficient economy in the mobility sector

This is a new EU-funded research project to start in May 2012. The project, entitled 'Servicing Policies for a Resource-Efficient Economy' (SPREE), aims to identify potential servicing policies and simulate their effect on absolute decoupling of economic growth and resource use, while achieving societal benefits. SPREE is dedicated to promoting the implementation of servicing systems in three different sectors by utilising an agent-based modelling approach: water, mobility and agrifood. Nihan will be involved in the constructing of a conceptual framework for servicing options in the mobility sector that can be empirically tested in global cities.

Teaching

Nihan currently teaches on the undergraduate courses at the School of Geography and postgraduate courses at the Department of Continuing Education:

  • Lecturer, Sustainable Urban Development
  • Lecturer and Tutorial Leader, Transport and Mobilities
  • Tutorial Leader, Introduction to Economic Geography
  • Tutorial Leader, Political and Economic Geographies of Cities

Her previous teaching includes:

  • Visiting Lecturer: MSc courses including Political Economy of Public Services, International Economy and a BSc course in Quantitative Methods at the Department of Economics, Westminster Business School, 2007-2008.
  • Head Teaching Assistant (Microeconomics, Macroeconomics and Game Theory) at the Department of Economics, Koç University, 2005-2006.

Publications

Published Works
Conference and Workshop Presentations
  • Akyelken, N. (2012) Mobility and Transport Policy. Workshop organised for the MSc Nature, Society and Environment Policy, St Hilda's College, Oxford, March 2012.
  • Akyelken, N. (2012) Beyond Transport and Development. Paper presented to: UTSG Conference, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, January 2012.
  • Akyelken, N. (2011) Capital and Development in Social and Cultural Contexts. Paper presented to: Regional Science Association Tripartite Workshop, The Resource Centre, London, UK, May 2011.
  • Akyelken, N. and Anderton, K. (2011) Internalization of External Costs: Stakeholder Participation. Paper presented to: The Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting, Seattle, USA, April 2011.
  • Akyelken, N. (2010) Capital and Development in Social and Cultural Contexts. Poster presented to: Social Sciences Division Poster Conference, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK, October, 2010.
  • Akyelken, N. (2010) Physical Infrastructure and Economic development. Paper presented to: WSP Visit Workshop, Oxford, UK, October, 2010.
  • Akyelken, N. (2010) Legislation and Policy - Key Drivers for Trade and Transport. LogMan Forum I Partner Presentations, AustriaTech, Vienna, Austria, June 2010.
  • Akyelken, N. (2010) Evolution of Economic Landscape. DPhil Upgrade Presentations, School of Geography and Environment, University of Oxford, January 2010.
  • Akyelken, N. (2009) Internalization of External Costs. FreightVision Forum III Partner Presentations, Brussels, Belgium, September 2009.
  • Akyelken, N. (2009). Overview of the Freightvision Project. Oxford TSU Project Workshop, June 2009.
  • Akyelken, N. (2009) Political economy perspective on climate change and transport. Paper presented to: 1st Euro-NECTAR Conference, School of Public Policy, George Mason University, Arlington, VA, USA, June 2009.
  • Akyelken, N. (2009) Producing Preliminary Visions for Freight Transport. TSU-Freightvision Internal Workshop, University of Oxford, April 2009.
  • Akyelken, N. (2009) Impact of demand management on sustainability. The IEMA Environmental Knowledge Transfer Conference, King's Centre, Oxford, January, 2009.