Dr. Mine Yıldız (Ph.D. Political Science, Hacettepe University, Ankara) is a Senior Associate Fellow at the Brussels School of Governance. She began as a visiting researcher at VUB in September 2018 but has since become a more permanent member of the IES team. Her research focusses on the impact on their motherland and on the domestic political situation of immigrant-origin Members of Parliament (MPs) in Belgium and other EU countries.
She studied sociology and graduated from Hacettepe University with a Bachelor's degree in 1994. Discovering that politics is her passion, she moved to Gazi University (1995) to undertake a Master’s degree in Political and Social Sciences continuing as a research assistant (1995-1997). In 2009, she obtained her PhD (Comparative analysis of parliament assistants in the Turkish Parliament), and taught at the Ankara Başkent University in the department of Political Sciences and International Relations (Communication and Politics). Besides her academic works, she served for eighteen years as parliamentary assistant for (altogether eight different) Members of Parliament of Turkish Social Democratic Parties (Democratic Left Party, Turkish: Demokratik Sol Parti, DSP and Republican People's Party, Turkish: Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, CHP) in the Turkish Parliament. In addition, she became active as well as a freelance journalist and blogger. These articles were published in printed and online media such as Cumhuriyet, BirGün, Haber Sol, İleri Haber, Mülkiye Haber (Turkey), Brussels Times (Belgium), Europe Blog (Germany), she still continue to write articles. She is also the Middle East Coordinator of the Brussels Diplomatic Academy (BDA).
In 2019, she was one of eight recipients of the “European International Women’s Leadership Award” which was handed over in the European Parliament. In 2024, she was selected as one of the "European Turkish Women Ambassadors" in Brussels.