Dr. Deena Saleh

I am Dr. Deena Saleh, also known as Deena Saleh Şahin, an Egyptian Turkish political economist studying social capital, trust, and economic sociology in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). I currently serve as an Assistant Professor in a Department of Economics and Finance in Istanbul. My scholarship specializes in political economy, cultural economics, and applied quantitative methods, with a primary focus on the MENA region. Full details of my education are below.

Beyond research and teaching, I think of my classroom as a relationship rather than a transaction, shaped in part by my own path between Cairo and Istanbul, two cities whose different rhythms continue to inform how I think about trust, a main component of social capital. I care about the moments outside the syllabus, mentoring students through uncertainty about what comes next, and I believe that bond between teacher and student is where much of the real learning happens.

Education

Areas of Specialization

Social Capital, Culture, Middle East Studies, Political Economy, and Multivariate Analysis.

Languages

Working across Arabic, English, and Turkish lets me read primary sources, conduct fieldwork, and communicate research directly to audiences across the Middle East, Türkiye, and the wider English speaking academic community, without relying on translation.

Fellowships, Scholarships, and Awards