Önder Yalçın is the director of the migration department for the city of Gaziantep, Turkey, a city that hosted half a million refugees after the Syrian civil war. He previously served as coordinator of the municipality’s social research centre. In his role, Yalçın contributes to the development of guidelines for refugee response planning, implements projects to assess and meet the needs of refugees and host communities, and collaborates with national ministries, NGOs, and UN agencies to exchange information. Yalçın received an MA in political science and international relations from Hasan Kalyoncu University, Gaziantep. He was a Fulbright Hubert H. Humphrey fellow at American University Washington College of Law in Washington, D.C., from 2019 to 2020. He is currently undertaking a PhD in sociology at Gaziantep University.