Nesli Ruken Han
Nesli Ruken Han is a Ph.D. candidate in History at the University of Crete, working under a co-supervision agreement with the Institute for Mediterranean Studies (IMS-FORTH). She holds a B.A. in History from Boğaziçi University, Istanbul, and completed her M.A. in a joint English-language programme in Ottoman History at the University of Crete with IMS-FORTH.
She specialises in late Ottoman history; her current research examines illicit mobility and the trafficking of women and children across the Black Sea and the eastern Mediterranean. This research forms part of the ERC project STASH.
Drawing on extensive archival material, primarily from Ottoman and consular archives, her work lies at the intersection of imperial and maritime histories, focusing on law, gender, childhood, mobility, and post-abolition regimes of unfreedom. She also has a particular interest in digital humanities methods, especially spatial and network analysis, and visualisation.
During her M.A. studies at IMS-FORTH, she participated in the ERC projects GHOST and JANET.