Dr. Açıkalın is currently a faculty member in the department of International Relations at Ankara Hacı Bayram Veli University. She graduated from the department of International Relations at Bilkent University in 2012 and received her master’s degree with the thesis “Leadership in Chaos: Angela Merkel and Euro Crisis” at the Middle East Technical University in 2015. She obtained her PhD degree in 2020 from the same university with the thesis “Political Leadership and Foreign Politics: Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Angela Merkel”. She had been a guest researcher at Lancaster University in the UK and Humboldt Universitat zu Berlin in Germany within Jean Monnet Scholarship Program. Dr. Açıkalın works on chaos and complexity theory, leadership, Turkish foreign policy, Turkish-EU relations, Turkey-China Relations, women and girls in migration studies, climate change as well as gastrodiplomacy and fashion diplomacy in theory and practice. She is also author of the book Leadership Diplomacy in Turkish-German Relations.

She is member of advisory board of Turkish Healthy Cities Union and National Center for the Sea and Maritime Law. She is a founding member of International Science Association and she has been working as expert in Diplomacy Foundation. Dr. Açıkalın is member of Bali Democracy Forum. She regularly gives interviews to national and international media outlets such as TRTWORLD, Al Jazeera among others.