Professor Giray Saynur Derman has worked in the field of International Relations, and received her undergraduate, Master’s and PhD degrees from Marmara University, Turkey, in 1991, 1995 and 2003 respectively. She is currently a Professor in the Communication Faculty at this institution, and her primary areas of academic interest are foreign and security policies in the geography of Eurasia, the Balkans and the Middle East. She is the author of Ukrainian Foreign Policy and the Internal Determinants (2015) and 1905-1907 Yılları Rusya Müslümanlarının Siyasi Kimlik Arayışı [Political Identity Research of the Russian Muslims between 1905 and 1907] (2008), and the editor of Blue Black Sea: New Dimensions of History, Security, Strategy, Energy and Economy (2013). She is also the co-author of Rus Dış Politikasındaki Değişim ve Kremlin Penceresinden Yeni Ufuklar [Transformation in the Russian Foreign Policy and New Horizons of the Kremlin’s View] (2016).