Emrah Safa Gürkan is a historian of the early modern Mediterranean, focusing on the Ottoman Empire. His research interests include espionage, piracy, conversion, vernacular diplomacy, slavery, frontiers, political factions and power-brokering.

He completed his Ph.D. in 2012 at Georgetown University with a dissertation entitled “Espionage in the 16th century Mediterranean: Secret Diplomacy, Mediterranean go-betweens and the Ottoman-Habsburg Rivalry”. In addition to a number of articles in English, Turkish, Italian, Spanish and German, he wrote two monographs: Sultanın Casusları: 16. Yüzyılda İstihbarat, Sabotaj ve Rüşvet Ağları (Tongues for the Sultan: Intelligence, Sabotage and Bribery in the 16th century) and Sultanın Korsanları: Osmanlı Akdenizi’nde Gazâ, Yağma ve Esaret, 1500 – 1700 (Pirates for the Sultan: Holy War, Booty and Slavery in the Ottoman Mediterranean, 1500 – 1700). While these monographs have been translated into English, Russian, Ukranian and Hungarian, Prof. Gürkan also penned several best-selling books in Turkish, concentrating on Turkish, European and World History.

Prof. Gürkan is the recipient of a number of awards. While his first book received the Scientific Monograph Award by Turkish Academy of Sciences (TÜBA), Gürkan personally got two other prestigious awards in 2018: The Outstanding Young Scientist Award by Turkish Academy of Sciences and the Promising Scientist Award at 14th Kadir Has Awards.

Prof. Gürkan is also an avid content creator. In 2011, he co-founded Ottoman History Podcast, which includes more than 500 interviews with experts on Ottoman and Middle Eastern History. Moreover, on his Youtube channel, Omnibus, he prepared more than 300 programs on history, literature, etymology and movies. He also acted as the historical consultant to Netflix’s Rise of Empires: Ottomans and Kanal D’s Fatih.