Iulia-Alexandra Oprea is part of a network of young Turkish and European leaders from all sectors who come together once a year to engage in intensive dialogue and to share views and ideas about topical social issues. The Turkey Europe Future Forum takes place alternately in Turkey and Germany, as well as in other European countries.
Iulia-Alexandra Oprea is an analyst at Karadeniz Press, asssociate member of the Balkan History Association in Bucharest and associate fellow at the Center for Middle East and Global Order in Berlin. Between 2020 and 2024 she worked as assistant professor at UMFST (GE Palade University of Medicine, Pharmacy, Science and Technology of Targu Mures) and holds a PhD from Sapienza University of Rome with a thesis on identity and alterity in contemporary Turkey. Iulia is a former CATS (Centre for Applied Turkey Studies) fellow at SWP (Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik), in Berlin, where she researched Turkish Islamic narratives and assessed the potential role of institutionalized Turkish-Islam in preventing/countering violent extremism in Germany, and TEFF (Turkey Europe Future Forum) fellow, a program of Stiftung Mercator. She collaborated with S. Pio V. Institute of Political Studies in Rome on a book project focusing on the political development in former Yugoslav republics, and with the journal Foreign Policy Romania, publishing articles on Turkish policy. Recently, she also co-edited a book on Turkish-Romanian relations, accepted for publication. In addition to the fieldwork conducted in Turkey and Germany as part of her PhD studies and fellowships, Iulia is also the winner of a European Forum Alpbach scholarship in Austria, where she later returned and worked as seminar assistant during the Forum. Furthermore, she has international experience in teaching – as visiting professor at the University of Cagliari in Italy (2023) and Piraeus University in Greece (2023). Her current interests are: identity building processes, religious diplomacy and populism, Turkish history and politics. She speaks Romanian, Hungarian, English, Italian, Turkish and basic German, Spanish and French.
