Mr. ?lgen graduated in 1987 from the University of Virginia with a double major in computer sciences and economics. He undertook graduate studies at the College of Europe where he received his M.A. in European economic integration in 1990. He then joined the Turkish Foreign Service as a career diplomat. In 1992, he was posted to the Turkish Permanent Delegation to the European Union in Brussels where he became part of the team that negotiated the Turkey-EU customs union. Mr. ?lgen is currently the director of the Istanbul based think tank, Center for Economics and Foreign Policy Studies and a visiting scholar at Carnegie Europe in Brussels. His research and opinion pieces have been published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the Center for European Policy Studies, the Center for European Reform, the Atlantic Council, the German Marshall Fund, Brookings, and the World Economic Forum as well as numerous newspapers.