Autobiography

Dr. Gulnara Ismukhanova is an Associate Professor (Research) at al-Farabi Kazakh National University, specializing in political sociology and conflict studies. She graduated from the Faculty of Philosophy (1988–1992) and completed doctoral studies in sociology (1992– 1996). Her fellowships include the Carl-Duisberg-Gesellschaft scholarship (1993–1994); the Chevening Scholarship at Nuffield College, University of Oxford (2000–2001); a Visiting Lecturer at the Institute of Demoscopy, Allensbach (1999), with access to archives from 1949–1999; and a DAAD & OSI fellowship at Alexander Humboldt University, Berlin (2002–2003), combined with research at the Max-Planck-Institute of Social Anthropology, Halle. In 1999, she founded the Institute of Social Research (ISR) in Almaty, Kazakhstan’s first independent center for public opinion studies, and directed it until 2013, leading over 200 projects with partners such as the World Bank, EBRD, ADB, and EU. Currently leads the research component of two major grant projects (2023–2025): a study on the institutionalization of social conflicts, and a PCF project on monitoring the quality of higher education at the Kazakh-German University. She is the author of nine monographs and textbooks (1999–2019) and around 60 scholarly articles, including in Q1–Q3 journals, her works has been cited internationally. Fluent in Kazakh, Russian, German, English, she advances interdisciplinary research on conflict prevention & social transformation in KZ.