Merve Ispahani is the Academic Programs Manager at Columbia Global Centers | Istanbul. Merve received her Ph.D. degree from Columbia University, Department of History. Her dissertation “Building Sovereignty in the Late Ottoman World: Imperial Subjects, Consular Networks and Documentation of Individual Identities” examines the formation of Ottoman sovereignty in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries at the disciplinary intersection of international law and history. As an attempt to break away from a strictly territorial understanding of sovereignty as a fixed legal construct, it explores shifting definitions of sovereignty within and across the boundaries of the Ottoman Empire as well as its semi-autonomous provinces. Merve also holds Master of Arts and Bachelor of Arts degrees in History from Boğaziçi University.