Cultural Heritage, Climate Change, and Sustainability Panel

We will be pleased for your participation in the “Cultural Heritage, Climate Change, and Sustainability Panel,” which we organized within the scope of the ICOMOS International Day for Monuments and Sites, commemorating the 8th anniversary of Bursa’s inclusion in the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2022.

MODERATOR

PROF. DR. NESLİHAN DOSTOĞLU

After completing her secondary and high school education at Robert College, Neslihan Dostoglu graduated from the Department of Architecture at Middle East Technical University (Bachelor’s Degree 1978, Master’s Degree 1981). She obtained her doctoral degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1986.

Dostoğlu, who became an associate professor in the Department of Architecture at Uludağ University in 1997 and obtained the title of professor in 2003, joined the academic staff of the Department of Architecture at Istanbul Kültür University in 2010. Dostoğlu, who is currently the Dean of the Faculty of Architecture at Istanbul Kültür University, played an important role as the Bursa Site Manager in the inclusion of Bursa in the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2014.

Neslihan Dostoğlu has published books, edited books, book chapters, articles published in important journals, conference papers, and has received various awards in architectural design competitions and in the profession, both domestically and internationally. Her research areas can be summarized as Architectural Design, Historical Environmental Analysis, and Architectural Education.

SPEAKERS

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nejan Huvaj

Dr. Nejan Huvaj received her Ph.D. in geotechnical engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2009. She is currently a faculty member in the Department of Civil Engineering at METU. Some of his areas of expertise include landslides, soil mechanics, foundation engineering, retaining structures, soil-induced building damages, and soil improvement/foundation strengthening. He is involved in the “CRAFT: Development of Climate Change Risk Assessment System for Cultural Heritage in Turkiye” project, funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council in collaboration with Durham University, which will conclude in 2022. She also participated in the project “Development of Disaster Mitigation Measures and Risk Reduction Criteria to be Adopted in Spatial Plans,” conducted by the Ministry of Environment, Urbanization, and Climate Change between 2020 and 2021. She is a member of the International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (ISSMGE) and served on the Geotechnical Expert Committee of the Chamber of Civil Engineers between 2013-2017 and 2020-2021. She is also a member of the international technical committee “JTC1: Natural slopes and landslides.”

Dr. Research Assistant Banu Gökmen Erdoğan

After completing her undergraduate degree in architecture at Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University, Banu Gökmen Erdoğan worked in various architectural offices in the field of Restoration. During the same period, she completed her master’s degree in Restoration Renewal – Preservation at Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University. She has been involved in the preparation of Survey, Restitution, and Restoration Projects of monumental structures such as Süleymaniye Mosque, Fatih Mosque, Nuruosmaniye Mosque, Süleymaniye Darüşşifa and Medical School, Yıldız Hamidiye Mosque, and Clock Tower, as well as civil architectural heritage in Süleymaniye Urban Transformation and Ayvansaray Urban Transformation Projects. She continued her work in the field of restoration at her own office established in 2011. In 2015, she became a lecturer in the Architectural Restoration Program at Beykent University Vocational School, and in the same year, she started her doctoral program in Restoration at Yıldız Technical University. Under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Zeynep Gül Ünal, she wrote her doctoral thesis titled “A Model Proposal for Risk Management in Floods Increasing with Climate Change and its Examination through the Example of Edirne.” She is currently a researcher in the CRAFT project, which is ongoing in collaboration with Durham University, Middle East Technical University, and Yıldız Technical University to investigate the effects of climate change on cultural heritage. Since 2018, she has been working as a lecturer in the Department of Restoration at Trakya University Faculty of Architecture. She also serves as the Deputy Director of the Trakya University Center for Ottoman Civilization Studies.

Prof. Dr. Zeynep Gül Ünal

Prof. Dr. Zeynep Gül Ünal is a faculty member in the Department of Restoration at YTU Faculty of Architecture and the Director of the Center for Applied Research on the Conservation of Historical Heritage. She works on the preservation of cultural assets, information technologies, natural and human-induced disasters, and the protection and risk management of tangible and intangible cultural assets in new generation hybrid war environments. She serves as the Vice President of ICOMOS International, Vice President of the ICORP Scientific Committee on Preparedness for Risks, and President of ICORP Turkiye. In 2021, she was appointed as the Coordinator of the ICORP Crisis Monitoring and Intervention Working Group established by the ICOMOS Board. In March 2022, she was appointed as the ICOMOS Representative to the UNESCO Expert Group on the Protection of Cultural Heritage in Ukraine. In addition to the courses she teaches and the theses she supervises at the university, she provides training and seminars at international organizations such as the ICCROM First Aid and Resilience for Cultural Heritage in Times of Crisis (FAR) Program and the NATO Civil-Military Cooperation – Program for the Protection of Cultural Assets, contributing to exercise planning and execution phases. Zeynep Gül Ünal is also the director of the ICORP On The Road Documentary Series on the Protection of Cultural Assets in Emergency Situations, filmed in Nepal, Mali, Pakistan, India, Turkiye, and Brazil.

Dr. Sibel Yıldırım Esen

Dr. Sibel Yıldırım Esen graduated from the undergraduate and graduate programs of the Department of Architecture at METU. In 2014, she completed her doctoral degree with a thesis titled “Risk Assessment of Archaeological Sites: The Case of Izmir” in the Cultural Heritage Conservation Program at METU. In 2012 and 2014, she participated in international training on “Disaster Risk Management of Cultural Heritage” organized by the Research Center for Urban Cultural Heritage Disaster Risk Reduction at Ritsumeikan University (Japan). In 2015, she completed her post-doctoral research at the ICCROM International Center for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property in Italy as a TÜBİTAK scholar. Since 1998, Dr. Yıldırım Esen has been involved in numerous national and international architectural and cultural heritage conservation projects. She currently works as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Architecture at METU. Her research interests include the vulnerability and risk assessment of cultural heritage, natural and human-induced disasters, climate change, risk management, resilience, and the conservation of traditional housing. She is a member of ICOMOS Turkiye and the ICORP International Scientific Committee on Preparedness for Risks.