Aslı Odman is a historian with a background in economics and political science. She is a senior lecturer at the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at the Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University in Istanbul and a founding volunteer of Istanbul Occupational Safety and Health Assembly. She studied economics at Vienna University of Economics, acquiered her MA in political science at Vienna University and PhD degree at the Institute of Atatürk Modern History Institute at Bosphorus University. Her graduate research looked into the economic nationalist formation of the national state in Mexico and Turkey in the 1930s and PhD research was based on the critical mapping of the global production network of the Ford Motor Company in Istanbul in the Interwar Period. Her recent research focuses on the university as a profit oriented corporation and the labour and ecological aspects of corporate networks with reference to ship building, mining, agriculture and film industries. As part of her action oriented research, she is also interested in grassroots struggles in response to abuses against the right to the city, the environment and health.