Aslı Odman is a social scientist, a lecturer at Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University and a founding volunteer of Istanbul Occupational Safety and Health Assembly. She studied economics at Vienna University of Economics, took her graduate degree in political science at Vienna University and PhD degree at the Institute of Atatürk Modern History Institute at Boğaziçi University. Her graduate research looked into the economic nationalist formation of the national state in Mexico and Turkey in the 1930s and PhD research into the global production network of the Ford Motor Company in Istanbul. Her recent research focuses on the university as a profit oriented corporation and the labour aspects of capitalist work organisation 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 state abuses against the right to the city, the environment and health.