Curated content is more than a listing of articles on an issue. It is an informed sorting of information on a subject, presenting it in its context and with discerning commentary. It is therefore important that the reader knows about me, the Curator of this site, to determine the validity of the content I present. So here is some background information.
I have degrees in Psychology (Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey) and Political Science (Illinois State University, Illinois, USA) and post graduate work on International Relations (New School for Social Research Graduate Faculty, New York, USA) with a focus on environment and development.
A Fulbright Scholarship brought me to the USA. A United Nations internship during my PhD studies in New York turned into a job in 1990. In the course of my academic studies, I decided to dedicate my work to environment and development issues which became my professional focus at the UN.
I served the UN exactly 25 years (October 1990 through October 2015). During those years, I worked in several different parts of the UN including: UN Centre on Transnational Corporations, UN Department for Economic and Social Affairs, Office of the Secretary-General, UN Non-Governmental Liaison Service, UN Environment and, UN Development Programme. All my work focused on sustainable development. I lived through the evolution of this concept, through the milestone conferences in 1992 (Rio), 2002 (Johannesburg), 2012 (Rio again), and the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals in 2015. I read a lot, especially drawn to works on climate change, inequality, impact of technology on work, and of course the UN, hence the subject categories of this site.
It is this background that allows me to sift the wheat from the chaff, curating content on subjects that interest me, and for people curious to learn but do not have as much time as I do to read, to analyse and to write.
Thanks for visiting, and drop me a note, if you have a question or just to say hello.
(I am also a classical guitarist, which explains the photo, and a member of the New York City Classical Guitar Orchestra)
Zehra Aydin