Gizem Aksümer

Gizem Aksümer is an Associate Professor in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University. Between 2022 and 2024, she worked as a postdoctoral researcher at Lyon University, contributing to the Co-Hope Project.

Throughout her academic journey, her core areas of expertise have been urban sociology, urban transformation, and rural studies. She has actively employed qualitative and mixed-methods research approaches in her work. Her research focuses on housing acquisition processes of different income groups, housing issues in Türkiye and Europe, urban transformation, and particularly on age-friendly cities. She is currently conducting extensive research on participatory housing initiatives, a significant movement across Europe. She also leads the Turkish consortium of the DUT project AGE-15, which focuses on aging and participatory environments. In addition, she is the principal investigator of a national TÜBİTAK project that aims to develop alternative solutions to urban transformation in the neighborhoods of Kadıköy, Istanbul.