Aysenur Sonmez Kara

Office and Programs Coordinator

Ayşenur Sönmez Kara joined the AbuSulayman Center for Global Islamic Studies in 2019 and currently serves as the Office and Programs Coordinator. She manages the Center’s administrative, fiscal, and operational functions; supervises student and non-student wage staff; coordinates academic programs, conferences, and events; and serves as liaison with George Mason University departments and administrative units. She also supports research administration and strategic initiatives that advance the Center’s mission.

She holds a Master’s degree in Middle East and Islamic Studies from George Mason University and a B.A. in International Relations and an M.A. in the Sociology of Religion from Uludağ University in Türkiye, where she also participated in an Erasmus exchange program at the University of Siegen, Germany. She previously worked as a research assistant at the Center for Turkish Studies at the Middle East Institute in Washington, D.C.

Selected Publications

Book chapter

Kara, Ayşenur Sönmez. "Welcoming Syrian refugees in Turkey: The role of religious discourse in the case of Diyanet." In Religious Studies Scholars as Public Intellectuals, pp. 135-147. Routledge, 2018.

Book review

Kara, Ayşenur Sönmez. Review of Have a Little Faith: Religion, Democracy, and the American Public School, by Benjamin Justice and Colin Macleod, Journal of Education in Muslim Societies 1, no.1 (2019):69-71.