Institute for Mediterranean Studies

Melis Cankara

Postdoctoral researcher
Department of Ottoman History

Melis Cankara, PhD
Architect, independent researcher

She worked as an architect in various offices in Istanbul between 2003-2016. After completing her doctoral studies, she joined SALT Research as a senior archivist (2016-2018). Her research interests, which lie at the intersection of architecture, history and the archival studies, are Crete, the population exchange between Greece & Turkey, spatial continuity, migration and displacement, 20th century architecture & design archives in Turkey, archiving born-digital materials. She was awarded by the State Scholarships Foundation (IKY) in 2012, The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK) in 2013, The American Research Institute in Turkey (ARIT) in 2015, the Alexander S. Onassis Foundations in 2019 for her research in Greece. Between 2019-2021 she worked as a post-doc researcher at The Institute for Mediterranean Studies (IMS). Since 2016, she has been contributing to Manifold with texts focusing on Crete, everyday life, and design. Currently, she is working on the Me Project, which she initiated in cooperation with Manifold in fall 2020.