Aylin Yildirim (Anthropology & Arquitecture)
Aylin Brigitte Yildirim received the graduate engineer diploma in Architecture in Germany in 2003, working as an architect on public and private projects since then. She received the Master of Science degree in 2007 after carrying out case studies in informal settlements in Istanbul, proposing an alternative strategy for upgrading informal settlements. During her course of studies, she was awarded several scholarships to study, research, and participate in symposia and conferences in the UK, Italy, Turkey, Spain, Brazil and the USA.
At the Graduate School of Design she has been working as a teaching fellow for Professor Dr Busquets’ Proseminar in Urban Design and the Design Studio on Lisbon’s Innovative Boulevards, Professor Dr Sarkis’ Design Studio on Istanbul’s Yenikapi Transport Hub and as a teaching assistant for Professor Dr Bozdogan’s seminar on Modernization in the Ottoman/Turkish context. Furthermore, she has working as a consultant for the Affordable Housing Institute, an NGO based in Boston, supporting the symposium on ‘Urban Renewal Entities and Disaster Risk Mitigation’ in Istanbul in 2010 and will be an instructor for a studio module on migration and development at the NuVu Studio in Boston, an innovative center that promotes new pedagogic methods at the middle and high school levels.
As a doctoral candidate at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, Aylin Yildirim pursues an academic career in the field of urban studies. There she applies practical and theoretical knowledge from various disciplines which she believes to be the best way towards a viable, future-oriented and sustainable solution for positive development. Her research interest lies in comprehensive and interdisciplinary urban design approaches to issues resulting from rapid urbanization and migration in regard to urban and rural development. For her research on architecture and migration she applies techniques from her architecture and planning background, as well as ethnographic field methods and other practices from urban anthropology, working closely together with the migrant communities. She has been admitted to pursue a second doctoral degree at Harvard and will start her PhD in Anthropology and Middle Eastern Studies in Fall 2011 which allows her to expand and deepen her expertise in interdisciplinary work, research and teaching.
Aylin Yildirim has joined the Open Source Creation Group in Spring 2011.