Berin Golonu is an assistant professor in 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, and draws connections with the uses of 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 Infrastructures and Society in (Post) Ottoman Geographies (Forum Transregionale Studien, 2021). Golonu’s research articles have appeared in peer reviewed publications such as Third Text, the Journal of Visual Culture, and Yıllık, The Annual of Istanbul Studies, 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).