Dr. Elif M. Gokcigdem (she/her) is the founding president of Empathy-Building Through Museums Initiative, which later became: ONE – Organization of Networks for Empathy and the editor of: Fostering Empathy Through Museums (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016) and Designing for Empathy: Perspectives on the Museum Experience (American Alliance of Museums, 2019), which are considered as reference books in empathy-building through museums, a field of inquiry she pioneered in 2014. Dr. Gokcigdem developed Designing for Empathy® as a unique, patented intellectual framework, and ONE as an international platform for multidisciplinary, multisector, and multicultural collaborations to deepen our understanding of empathy, and to develop strategies, scholarship, and empathy-building experiences that consider the wellbeing of the whole —all of humanity and our planet. In 2018, Dr. Gokcigdem curated and co-chaired the world’s first empathy summit titled: Fostering Universal Ethics and Compassion through Museums with His Holiness The 14th Dalai Lama in Dharamshala, India. Elif grew up in Istanbul, Turkey, studying history of Islamic art and mysticism, and later, museum studies in the US. Currently, she leads ONE, teaches at the GWU Corcoran School of the Arts and Design, and serves as a member of the Board of Trustees at the Museum of Us. Contact: info@oneempathynetwork.com | @ElifGokcigdem | @one.empathy.network
Dr. Gokcigdem frequently shares her insights on empathy-building in international conferences, media interviews and podcasts, as well as through her consulting services and customized workshops and keynotes she delivers for non-profits, academia, cultural institutions, and corporations.
Dr. Gokcigdem’s work has inspired and informed the founding of a new field of inquiry: Empathy-Building through Museums, which explores the intentional use of cultural and public spaces for empathy-building, contributing to the progress of numerous pioneering empathy-building initiatives, products, and creative cross-sectors partnerships around the world. Dr. Gokcigdem has been invited to be an advisor to major social, cultural, innovation, and environmental projects such as: Minneapolis Institute of Art’s Center for Empathy and Visual Arts (CEVA) (2017); Building a National Architecture for Peace in America by School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University (2018); The Empathy Project: Advancing Conservation Through Empathy for Wildlife by Woodland Park Zoo, Seattle Aquarium, and Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium (2019); Another AI in Art by Columbia School of Engineering, the New Museum, and the Knight Foundation (2019); Identity on the Line a multi-country project for the European Union (2020); The Chautauqua Institution’s Online Designing for Empathy Workshops (2020), The Empathy Week (2021), and the Climate Change & Environmental Empathy Initiative (2022). An updated list of her ongoing work can be found at: oneempathynetwork.com
Dr. Gokcigdem received her MA and PhD in Art History from the Istanbul Technical University, where she worked with Professor Semra Ogel, specializing on medieval Islamic arts figural and geometric imagery, and completed her Museum Studies graduate certification program at The George Washington University through an international scholarship awarded by TEV – Turkish Education Foundation. She worked as a curatorial research assistant to Dr. Esin Atil at the Islamic Arts Department of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Asian Art, and has served in advisory roles in museums community as a member of the AAM National Program Advisory Committee, The George Washington University Museum and Textile Museum Advisory Council, and Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Services (SITES).
Please visit our NEW WEBSITE for more information on ONE: www.oneempathynetwork.com, or contact: info@oneempathynetwork.com | @ElifGokcigdem | @one.empathy.network.
