In 2019, the Center for Bioethics welcomed Interdisciplinary Doctoral Fellow Tankut Atuk, a third-year PhD student in Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Minnesota.
Through his fellowship with Bioethics, Tankut seeks to understand and redress the ways in which the Turkish State violates access to health(care) and fails in responding to its national HIV epidemic.
His current project looks at the socio-political dimensions of the world’s fastest-growing HIV epidemic in Turkey.
Tankut holds two master’s degrees in Gender Studies and Sociology and is completing a minor in Sociocultural/Medical Anthropology in addition to his PhD.
Tankut’s passion for teaching and researching is grounded in his awareness that radical transformation is not possible without activism and community involvement. Because of this, Tankut tries to play an active part in the grassroots HIV organizations in both Turkey and the US. As a member of differently marginalized groups himself, Tankut is especially invested in producing academic work that is not divorced from the lived realities and aims at challenging structural inequalities and injustices.
The Interdisciplinary Doctoral Fellowship (IDF) provides a unique opportunity for outstanding Ph.D. students who are engaged in interdisciplinary research to study with faculty at one of the University’s interdisciplinary research centers or institutes during the fellowship year. Interested in the Interdisciplinary Doctoral Fellowship? Learn more.
