Gökçe Şencan

Gökçe Şencan is a research associate at the Public Policy Institute of California's (PPIC) Water Policy Center. Her areas of expertise include droughts in Mediterranean climates and the impact of climate change on societies. At PPIC, she has co-authored several reports, fact sheets, and blogs on California's water issues, and worked extensively on issues like urban drought resilience, freshwater ecosystems, water markets, groundwater, and agriculture. Gökçe's focus areas in the Middle East are climate change and public health, green development, and food and water security.

Gökçe previously worked as an intergovernmental affairs intern at the United Nations Environment Programme in New York and as a climate change research intern at the Istanbul Policy Center. During her master's, she was involved in several projects like water purchasing opportunities for environmental flows from retiring coal-fired power plants, and economic benefits of reducing carbon dioxide emissions through land-use interventions in California, in collaboration with The Nature Conservancy. Gökçe is an active contributor to climate debates in Turkey.

Education
BSc. in Chemical-Biological Engineering - Koc University, Istanbul
BSc. in Molecular Biology and Genetics - Koc University, Istanbul
Master's in Environmental Science and Management - Bren School at the University of California, Santa Barbara

Languages
English, Spanish, Turkish

Countries/Regions of Expertise
Turkey, Eastern Mediterranean, Western U.S.

Issues of Expertise
Climate change, water, agriculture, public health, ecosystems