Elif Perla is an EU affairs expert based in Brussels. She currently works as a consultant to the European Commission’s Directorate-General for International Partnerships, and as an expert for the EU’s Sivil Dusun (Think Civil) Programme supporting civil society in Turkey. Prior to this, she served at the Ministry for European Union Affairs (MEU) of the Republic of Turkey for eight years, where she began her civil service career in 2010. She also worked at the European Parliament as a Pat Cox Fellow and at the European Commission as a National Expert in Professional Training. As the co-founder of Roman Medya, she was actively involved in issues concerning human rights, anti-discrimination and Roma rights in Turkish civil society.
Ms. Perla holds a BA in Social and Political Science from Sabancı University, an MA in EU Foreign Policy and Security Issues from the University of Warwick, which she attended with a Jean Monnet Scholarship, and an MSc in Governance and Development from the University of Antwerp.