About Me

Hi there! My name is Gökçe (pronounced Goe-k-che, feel free to ask me how to pronounce it if you are struggling) and I am a climate policy researcher based in California. I specialize on issues like droughts in Mediterranean climates (including California and the Middle East), urban water resilience, climate-resilient agriculture and the impact of climate change on societies (like public health, food and water security etc.). Being a city gal, I also have a deep interest in sustainable cities and decarbonization, especially electricity and transportation sectors, and publish policy analyses on these topics as well.

As you can tell, I don't spend most of my days thinking about and working on the most cheerful stuff but I still find my work rewarding--even though change can happen excruciatingly slowly and sometimes comes too late--because it is still better than not doing anything at all, where the chances of change drop to 0%. That being said, when things get *too* overwhelming I try to give myself some breathing room by cooking, baking, exercising, sketching, and playing video games and chess (I'm a *very* casual player, not a grandmaster or anything).