Global Postdoc Pathways
This session will give humanities doctoral students a chance to connect with two recent WashU alums who secured prestigious international postdoctoral fellowships after graduation. We’ll discuss how these former students strategized the international search process as international students in the U.S. and hear more details about their postdoctoral experiences.
Participants
Deniz Gündoğan İbrişim is a literary scholar specializing in cultural trauma and memory studies, gender and sexuality studies, postcolonial theory, 20th- and 21st-century Anglophone world literatures, and environmental humanities. She earned a PhD in comparative literature from Washington University in 2021. From 2021 to 2023, she was a Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellow at Sabancı University, where she explored artistic and literary representations of climate trauma and grief in contemporary Mediterranean contexts. Currently, she is an assistant professor at Kadir Has University in Istanbul, Turkey.
Oğuz Alyanak defended his PhD in anthropology at WashU in 2019, and held a postdoctoral appointment as a Volkswagen Stiftung Fellow to initiate exploratory research on gender, morality and labour relations. At present, he is a qualitative researcher with the Oxford Internet Institute at the University of Oxford, where he researches labour conditions and regulatory compliance across the AI supply chain.
Related links
Marie Sklodowsa-Curie Actions Postdoctoral Fellowships
Part of the EU Framework Program for Research and Innovation “Horizon Europe” (2021-2027), the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Postdoctoral Fellowships support researchers holding a PhD to carry out their research activities abroad, acquire new skills and international, interdisciplinary, and inter-sectoral experience to advance their careers. Next funding call opens April 9, with applications due September 2026.
Volkswagen Stiftung/Volkswagen Foundation
The Volkswagen Foundation is dedicated to the support of the humanities and social sciences as well as science and technology in higher education and research. It funds research projects in path-breaking areas and provides assistance to academic institutions for the improvement of the structural conditions for their work. The foundation periodically offers postdoctoral opportunities through themed calls; peruse their current offerings and subscribe to their mailing list to stay informed about new programs and deadlines.