Hello, my name is Selen (seh-LEN 🔊). I am the Marilyn J. Gittell Postdoctoral Fellow at the CUNY Graduate Center, where I help run the Gittell Urban Studies Collective. I am a sociologist who studies how people organize to change public policy and institutions in conflicts over taxation, affordable housing, and higher education. I'm especially interested in how moral claims about fairness and responsibility shape the politics and policies of redistribution.

My research has been supported by the Center for Engaged Scholarship (Dissertation Fellow) and the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics (SASE Early Career Workshop, 2025). Before joining CUNY, I worked at the UW Center for Evaluation & Research for STEM Equity (CERSE), where I conducted participatory action research (PAR) with engineering educators, supported program evaluation for NSF projects, and served on the EDI committee for the Cosmic Explorer.

I earned an MA and a PhD in Sociology from the University of Washington in Seattle. I also hold a BA in Sociology with a minor in political science and international relations from Boğaziçi University in İstanbul, Türkiye.

Feel free to get in touch with me at sguler@gc.cuny.edu, or check out some of my research on Google Scholar.