Aygen Kurt-Dickson is a Policy Fellow at the Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity based at the III, where she leads a project on Funding Policy and Funders related to Academic-Practitioner (AcPrac) collaborations. In partnership with other colleagues, Aygen aims to expand the AFSEE’s policy-oriented and practitioner-focused research analyses and outputs. She also leads on funding bid development and external relationship management related to AcPrac.

Aygen has a background in political science, science and technology studies (STS), and research and innovation policy. She has developed multiple aptitudes in her career over the last decade in-between academic and administrative facets of higher education (both as a post-doc fellow and research & innovation development professional); therefore, she considers herself as a “blended professional”; a term coined by Celia Whitchurch. As part of her work in AFSEE, she delves into expanding her understanding of co-production of knowledge, epistemic injustice and equitable collaborations for social change.