Prof. Dr. İştar Gözaydın studied law at Istanbul University (1981) and New York University (1987). Starting her academic career in 1983, she became a full professor in 2006. Prof. Gözaydın held tenure positions at various universities in Turkey. Focusing on state-religion relations, the role of religion in Turkey’s foreign policy, religious discrimination, and law-politics relations, Prof. Gözaydın has also worked at Birkbeck College, University of London and London Metropolitan University as a visiting professor. She was imprisoned on unfounded charges under the Turkish “Anti-Terror Law” between December 2016 and March 2017, but she was fully acquitted in 2018. However, since her passport was nullified by the authorities and was not reissued for a full three years, she was unable to accept a professorship position at Leibniz University in 2018. Being a founding member of Helsinki Citizens Assembly (now officially Citizens Assembly), a prominent human rights NGO, and having published over one hundred works on national and international platforms, Prof. Gözaydın was given the Lisl and Leo Eitinger Human Rights Award by the University of Oslo. Her latest book titled Religion, Politics and Society in Modern Turkey: 1808-2023 will be published by Edinburgh University Press in 2023.