Fazilet Ahu Özmen attained her PhD in Strasbourg University in October 2009. Her doctorate thesis is on Contemporary Alevi Youth and its social and political development of identity, and analyzes the question ‘Is Alevi Youth a pluralistic, traditional and postmodernist youth?’ She is an assistant professor at the French Political Science and International Relations Department of Yeditepe University in Istanbul and also gives lectures in various universities in Istanbul.