Handan Karakas Demir is a historian specializing in the Ottoman Empire, with a particular emphasis on the relationship between individuals and places. She earned her BA degree in political science and international relations from Boğaziçi University, followed by a MA in urban policy planning and local governments from Middle East Technical University. In 2023, she completed her doctoral studies in Ottoman history at Bilkent University. With her academic foundation grounded in the social sciences, her dissertation, “A Matter of Belonging: Place Attachment of Ordinary People in 18th Century Ottoman Society,” employed an interdisciplinary approach to explore the emotional, behavioural, and cognitive connections between ordinary Ottomans and places. Her most recent work, “Challenging the Islamic City Paradigm: A Trial for Ottoman Urban Spaces through the Lens of Collective Action Theory,” was published in the Journal of Social Sciences of the Turkic World. In her professional role, she serves as a legislative specialist at the Grand National Assembly of Türkiye, where she holds the role of secretary to the Turkish Delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. At CMES, she is currently engaged in a project aimed at advancing the insights gained from her doctoral dissertation. This project, which focuses on exploring attachment bonds between Ottoman people and places in the 19th century, seeks to unveil how these bonds played a role in shaping the Ottoman identity within the transformative context of the rise of nation-states. Her research draws upon various disciplines, including environmental psychology, sociology, and history, to provide a comprehensive understanding of the relationships between Ottoman people and their environments.