# Erin Dickerson AM Candidate in Regional Studies—Middle East ![Erin Dickerson](/sites/g/files/omnuum9116/files/styles/hwp_4_5__320x400/public/2026-09/Dickerson-Erin-web.jpg?itok=fypdXJxl) email laptop\_windows [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/erindickerson5/) Erin Dickerson earned her Bachelor of Arts from Duke University in 2026, majoring in Middle Eastern studies with a concentration in Turkish and a minor in political science. She is a Critical Languages Scholarship (CLS) recipient, Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Fellow, and a Project Global Officer scholar for modern Turkish. Her language training has taken her to Boğaziçi University's Turkish Language and Culture Program and the University of Wisconsin–Madison's Middle Eastern and Mediterranean Languages Institute, and she is currently studying Persian at Harvard University. Erin also commissioned as an Air Force officer in 2026, graduating as a Distinguished Graduate of Duke's Air Force ROTC program, and was selected as a Language Enabled Airman Program scholar for Turkish. As an Air Force officer, a scholar of the Middle East, and someone with family ties to the region, she is committed to informing American military strategy and foreign policy in the Middle East, with a particular interest in the foreign service. She intends to bring a perspective grounded in both regional study and lived experience to military spaces, in service of better outcomes for Americans and Middle Eastern citizens. Her research interests center on the US-Turkey alliance and the US-Iran relationship, with a focus on envisioning what these relationships could look like going forward given the countries' evolving leadership styles and the broader shifts reshaping the Middle East. Her undergraduate thesis, "The Remaking of Coercive Power in Turkey under the AKP, 2002–2025," examines how the AKP consolidated authority over Turkey's security apparatus and currently leverages that control to advance its political agenda and attempt to reconstitute the very definition of "Turkishness" and the Turkish state. This work earned her graduation with Highest Distinction. Outside her research, she is drawn to classical Persian literature and is an advocate for Afghan women's rights, following developments in Afghan civil society and education access for women under the Taliban. - ## People [Graduate Students](/people/students) [AM Students](/people/am-students) - ## Research by Field [Government](/research-field/government) [History](/research-field/history) [Literature](/research-field/literature) [Modern Middle East Languages](/research-field/modern-middle-east-languages) - ## Research by Region [Iran](/research-region/iran) [Turkey](/research-region/turkey)