Terken received her B.S. in Management and M.S. degree in International Relations at Middle East Technical University in Turkey. Her thesis was on post-Soviet nationalism in Russia. She worked as a researcher at a foreign policy think tank, was a Legislative Fellow at the House of Representatives, became a Director at a consulting firm focusing on global water and energy market, and held the position of Director of Policy and Communications of an intercultural NGO in Washington DC. She has been a full-time instructor at ASU since 2015

Research Interests

• Nationalism
• Ethnicity in post-Soviet countries
• National identity construction
• Contemporary political discourse in Russia and in Turkey
• Leadership theory