Berin Golonu is an assistant professor of art history at the University at Buffalo. Her research focuses on urban ecologies, spatial practices, and landscape imagery. Her first monograph, Naturalizing Modernization: Urban Greenspace and Public Memory in Late Ottoman Istanbul, traces changing concepts of urban public space in the Ottoman capital during the long nineteenth century. It concludes with a chapter on preservation and heritage practices in the city’s historical greenspaces today. Sections of this research have been published in the edited volume Commoning the City: Empirical Perspectives on Urban Ecology, Economics and Ethics (Routledge, 2020) and the peer reviewed journal YILLIK 7: Annual of Istanbul Studies (2026). Golonu’s research articles have appeared in other peer reviewed publications such as Third Text and the Journal of Visual Culture, and her art criticism has been published in art journals worldwide. Along with Candice Hopkins and Marisa Jahn, she is co-editor of the volume Recipes for an Encounter (Western Front Editions, 2010). From 2003-2008, Golonu served as a curator of contemporary art at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. Her research has recently been supported by Dumbarton Oaks/Mellon Democracy and Landscape Initiative (2025-26), UB Humanities Institute (2023-24); Getty Research Institute/ACLS (2022-23); American Research Institute in Turkey/NEH (2019) and the Leibniz Fellowship for Historical Authenticity in collaboration with Zentrum Moderner Orient (2018).