Received Sylff fellowship in 2025
Academic supervisor : Professor Markus Höllerer & Associate Professor Suzanne Chan-Serafin
Current affiliation : UNSW Business School, Sydney
Özlem’s academic journey began with a Bachelor of Business at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), followed by a Master’s in Applied Positive Psychology at the University of Melbourne. She recently completed a Master of Pre-Doctoral Business Studies at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), where she was awarded the Veronica (Caihui) Lin Memorial Prize and featured on the prestigious Dean’s Honours List for academic excellence. She is currently pursuing her PhD in Organisational Studies at UNSW Business School, drawing on the interdisciplines of sociology, management, and public policy. Her research explores how marginalised members of society, who often become vulnerable workers in the labour force, navigate exclusion, underemployment, and precarity in pursuit of dignified, meaningful livelihoods. Özlem’s academic vision is rooted in care, justice, humanity, social transformation, and flourishing. She is committed to a career that bridges rigorous scholarship with real-world impact, advancing belonging, inclusion, and opportunity for marginalised populations and vulnerable workers. Ultimately, her research aims to inform more sustainable systems of work - systems that ripple outward to create not only more equitable workplaces, but flourishing societies.
Academic Achievements, Social Engagement Initiatives
University of Melbourne, Dean's Honours List, 2022
UNSW Dean's Honours List, 2024
UNSW The Veronica (Caihui) Lin Memorial Prize, 2024
www.linkedin.com/in/özlembeldan
