Ela Babalık

Ela Babalık is an urban planner and transportation policy expert. She graduated from the Department of City and Regional Planning at Middle East Technical University (METU) in 1994 and completed her master’s degree in Urban Policy Planning and Local Governments at METU in 1996. In the same year, she was awarded a Council of Higher Education of Türkiye (YÖK) scholarship and pursued her doctoral studies between 1996 and 2000 at the Centre for Transport Studies, University College London (UCL) in the United Kingdom. Since 2000, Babalık has been a member of the academic staff at METU’s Department of City and Regional Planning. Since 2023, she has been teaching urban transport planning and transport policy courses as a part-time faculty member. 

In addition to her academic role, she serves as a consultant and expert on national and international projects, focusing on training, planning, policy, and strategy development. Her main research interests include transport policy, urban transport planning, sustainable mobility, climate change mitigation and adaptation policies, and planning education.