Zeynep Sila Akinci

Zeynep Sila Akinci is a researcher with a background in urban design and landscape architecture. Her work centres on urban spatial analysis, examining how the physical configuration of the built environment shapes everyday practices and the dynamics of public space. She is currently a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Global Postdoctoral Fellow in the CareNet research group.

In her doctoral research in urban geography, Zeynep used GPS tracking data and spatial analysis to examine how specific urban design features influence outdoor activities—particularly walking and resting—among older people in Barcelona. Building on this work, her current postdoctoral project, RESTinHEAT, investigates the relationships between urban design, heat extremes, and multispecies practices of outdoor resting and cooling in public open spaces across Amed/Diyarbakir, Melbourne, and Barcelona, using visual ethnography, urban diaries, and participatory photo mapping.

Alongside her core work in urban studies, Zeynep also works in political ecology and critical development studies. Her research in this field focuses on hydropolitics, state-led development, and the socio-spatial effects of large-scale water infrastructure on processes of territorial transformation.

Before entering academia, she worked for nearly a decade as a landscape architect and urban designer, primarily in municipalities as well as in NGOs and private-sector firms.