Prof. Dr. Mehmet Hacısalihoğlu was born in Tonya, Trabzon, Turkey. He studied Turkish History at Ankara University and the History of Eastern and Southeastern Europe in Munich, Germany. He completed his master's thesis on The Image of Greece in Turkey (Türk Ansiklopedisi) and earned his PhD with a dissertation on The Young Turks and the Macedonian Question.
He has participated in several research projects in Germany, including Southeast European Toponymies and Comparison of Empires, and led the project The Image of the Ottoman Empire and Turkey in Contemporary History Textbooks in the Balkan and Black Sea Countries in Turkey.
Prof. Hacısalihoğlu is the founding director of the Center for Balkan and Black Sea Studies (BALKAR) at Yıldız Technical University in Istanbul. His primary research interests include the history of the Balkans in the 19th and 20th centuries, Russia, the Caucasus, and the Black Sea region—particularly the history of notables (ayans) in the Black Sea area.
He has published books, edited volumes, and numerous articles on a wide range of topics related to the Ottoman Empire, Balkan history, and the Black Sea region.
Prof. Demirci was born in Istanbul, Turkey and graduated from the Faculty of Political Science, Marmara University also holding an MA from their Institute of Social Sciences. In 1990 she received her M.Phil. in International Relations from the University of Cambridge and completed her Ph.D. in the Department of International History at The London School of Economics and Political Sciences in 1998. Throughout the duration of her M.Phil and Ph.D, Dr. Demirci worked as part-time lecturer in the Faculty of Oriental Studies at the University of Cambridge.
Prof. Demirci has national and international publications in a variety of academic journals. She is a public speaker who has delivered numerous speeches at several international conferences and universities, in addition to appearances on national television. She is also a part-time lecturer at the War Colleges in Istanbul and has published two books entitled: "Strategies and Struggles - British Rhetoric and Turkish Response: The Lausanne Conference 1922-1923" and "British Public Opinion towards the Ottoman Empire during the Two Crises: Bosnia- Herzegovina (1908-1909) the Balkan Wars (1912-1913)”.
She is currently a lecturer at Boğaziçi University, Istanbul, Turkey.