Born in 1984, in a city named after a beautiful Amazon lady, the adventure of life has started. I completed my first and secondary education in Izmir, Turkey. Right afterwards, a long journey including loads of trips and adventures has started…Without going too much into details, here I am with a brief info about my personal background; a social person dedicated to the life itself, one of the sons of a beautiful and devoted mother, a lover of languages and a person full of life, hopes and aims.

Might I begin with my academic background along with my studies in general – after all, I have long been interested in the field of political science and its myriad socio-political, economical and cultural nuances and fascinations. Regarding my undergraduate degree transcript in Nicosia – which would be described as rewarding and fruitful – I was the sole student in the department of International Relations to obtain ‘high honour’ scholarship for six consecutive academic semesters for outstanding performance in the coursework of core subjects, and my overall GPA was the first highest within my department. An inspiration of ‘International Relations’ Bsc that had led me to begin my Masters studies at the Faculty of Political Science ‘R. Ruffilli’ at the University of Bologna, in Italy was the course – the Masters of Interdisciplinary Research in East European Studies (MIREES) that I had mastered my educational skills before I started my PhD studies and was designed to train regional experts with a knowledge that is both in-depth and broad, and I have immensely enjoyed, and excelled at, my studies on the region’s politics, history, economics and culture. During the class, we spent a lot of time analysing and discussing the socio-political, economical and cultural aspects of the region and the EU in the context of their institutions, social and foreign policy and international relations: I subsequently became interested in economical, socio-cultural and political impacts of EU integration in both member and candidate countries and have prepared a great deal of research on the matter in writing my final thesis (which I am still doing for the time being). I feel that my interest in the region, analysing and monitoring its economical, social and cultural actions is far from fleeting or hastily constructed solely for my cause – indeed, I have been studying on the region and the EU and their institutions for nearly six years now – and that my enthusiasm and depth of knowledge for the subject at hand can only be an extremely positive addition.

Related to my studies are my communicative qualities, which I consider to be my greatest asset. I have a long and rich history of both fine written and oral communication – in terms of the former; I have always been given praise for energetic, concise and apposite prose, both for serious academic texts as well as the more flippant journalism work that I have undertaken over the years. I believe that the ability to effectively convey meaning through words is one of the most important qualities that someone can possess, and I have developed and nurtured this in both study and work related environments. In terms of oral communicative ability, I am confident and enthusiastic whether speaking to one person or several hundred. I thrive on giving presentations about topics that I am passionate about, and love to field questions from interested parties. I have primarily undertaken such oral presentations on my own, but have also worked in teams and find that my communicative abilities allow a certain ease in terms of transmission of ideas between the various members. I very much enjoy watching an idea take shape and improve after several different opinions have all subjected it to some form of moderation. In my humble opinion, the more cultural standpoints that are included in a team the better a job that is done – there is little point having a group of people in which everybody thinks the same. Being that I have now lived in several different countries, I feel that I can very much appreciate the sensitivities of different cultures. Having managed also several team-works both during my professional life and the final years in University, I can well appreciate the benefits that a diverse team can bring to a project.

Besides my graduate studies, I have taken extracurricular courses in Collegio Superiore, which the school of excellence of the Alma Mater Studiorum University of Bologna and was created with the aim of selecting particularly motivated students and of promoting advanced and interdisciplinary educative programmes. Therefore, I am immensely proud of the fact that I did manage to complete my studies with no little degree of success. The fact that I achieved a very reasonable level of German language at Goethe Institute of Izmir, Turkey; Italian and Hungarian language ability in this year and a full year of Italian language lessons during my undergraduate studies is yet more testament to my willingness to learn and absorb information. I also took a full year of Bulgarian language lessons – achieving the highest mark – and a Russian lesson at Corvinus University of Budapest last semester.

All in all, this is who I am so far…