Zeynep Egeli is a project assistant at the Atlantic Council in Turkey, part of the Atlantic Council’s Turkey Program, where she supports work on security, energy, and geopolitical affairs.

Prior to joining the Atlantic Council, Egeli was an associate at Glocal Group, a consultancy specializing in energy and sustainability. There, she advised international tech firms entering the Turkish market and contributed to a premium weekly energy intelligence report, analyzing EU energy security and sustainability legislation during the early stages of the war in Ukraine. She also co-authored a book chapter on this topic.

Egeli has held roles in international and civil organizations including the International Criminal Court and the Cultural Emergency Response in the Netherlands, focusing on crisis management and threat analysis. She is also an associate member of ICOMOS-ICORP, the scientific committee on risk preparedness under the International Council on Monuments and Sites, contributing to projects on cultural security.

She holds an MSc in crisis and security management from Leiden University, and her thesis explores the use of warning intelligence for the protection of cultural heritage in conflict zones. Egeli later served as first author of a chapter on the same subject in Contemporary Intelligence Warning Cases: Learning from Successes and Failures (Edinburgh University Press, 2024). She also earned a BA in international studies from Leiden University, with a minor in intelligence studies and distinction through the Honours College program, where she specialized in cultural heritage studies.

Her academic work has been recognized with the Leiden Excellence Scholarship, Holland Scholarship, and the Kluitersprijs for outstanding students in intelligence studies.