Ümit Erol Aras is a research associate and lecturer in the department of “International Relations/Peace and Conflict Research” at the Institute of Political Science since October 2023. He finished his undergraduate studies at Bilkent University, Ankara, at the Department of Political Science and Public Administration, graduating at the top of his class. During his undergraduate studies, he interned in various research centres, including the Bilkent Centre for International Relations and Peace Research and the Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey. He received his M.A. in Political Science from Bilkent University, with his thesis on anti-Westernism in Turkish media and its implications for Turkish domestic politics and foreign policy. Since 2021, he has also been the Editorial Assistant of Southeast European and Black Sea Studies (SSCI, IF: 2.1). For his doctoral thesis, he examines the anti-Westernism(s) of revisionist foreign policies of Russia and Turkey, with specific focus on the ideologies of Eurasianism and neo-Ottomanism.