About Me

I was born in Istanbul in 1989. I graduated from Galatasaray High School, completed my undergraduate studies in sociology at Galatasaray University in 2013, received my master’s degree in sociology at Boğaziçi University in 2017, and my PhD in sociology at Istanbul Medeniyet University in 2022. I was awarded the title of Associate Professor in January 2026.

My doctoral dissertation was published as Transformation of the Professions: Doctors and Lawyers and was awarded the TÜBA (Turkish Academy of Sciences) Scientific Book Award in 2023. The book analyzes the growth and status hierarchy in two professions over the past two decades through a generational lens and explores differences in various forms capital.

My research agenda focuses on professions, elites, social stratification, and inequality. My current research examines the patterns of stratification within the medical profession in Türkiye along the axes of higher education expansion, career trajectories, and privatization, drawing on a large-scale quantitative dataset of around 9,000 doctors.

I am currently a faculty member in the Department of Sociology at Istanbul Medeniyet University, where I teach courses in social theory, work and occupations, social stratification, Bourdieusian sociology at the graduate level, and the sociology of medicine (for medical school students).

Alongside my academic work, I have published two poetry books (2015, 2020) and a volume of literary criticism (2017). I translated the works of Antonio Negri and Bernard Stiegler from French into Turkish during my student years. I also translated and prepared annotated editions of Ezra Pound’s Lustra and Ripostes in Turkish.

I am a member of Galatasaray Sport Club. I hope one day to complete my research on the ethnography of football fan tribunes and the political economy of club managements.

You can reach me via e-mail: elyesa.koytak@medeniyet.edu.tr