Dr. Sercan Çalışkan graduated from the Department of History at Istanbul University in 2017. In the same year, he continued his education in the Master’s Program in International Security and Terrorism at the Alparslan Institute of Security Sciences, National Defense University. He completed his master’s degree with a thesis titled “Perception Wars Through Social Media: Operation Olive Branch.” He completed the International Security Ph.D. Program at the Police Academy; his doctoral research focuses on the construction, transformation, and challenges of the security bureaucracy in Iraq after 2003. Since 2019, Çalışkan has been working as a researcher in the Iraq Studies department at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies (ORSAM). He has conducted field research in many Iraqi provinces, including Baghdad, Mosul, Kirkuk, Erbil, and Najaf. He served as an international observer on behalf of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Türkiye during the 2021 Iraqi Parliamentary Elections and the 2023 Iraqi Provincial Council Elections. His areas of expertise include security issues in Iraq and their regional impacts, as well as the social and political reflections of Iraq’s ethnic and sectarian structures. His op-eds and analyses have been published on various national and international platforms, primarily ORSAM, as well as Anadolu Agency, The Diplomat, and the Washington Institute.