Esra Akcan is the Michael A. McCarthy Professor of Architectural Theory in the Department of Architecture and the Director of the Insitute for European Studies.

Her scholarly work on a geopolitically conscious global history of urbanism and architecture inspires her teaching. She is the author of Architecture in Translation: Germany, Turkey and the Modern House (Duke University Press, 2012); Turkey: Modern Architectures in History (with S. Bozdoğan, Reaktion/University of Chicago Press, 2012); and Open Architecture: Migration, Citizenship and the Urban Renewal of Berlin-Kreuzberg (Birkhäuser-De Gruyter, 2018).