Elif Gokcigdem

Elif Gokcigdem is serving in her first term on the board, joining in August 2022. She is the founding president of ONE - Organization of Networks for Empathy, and the editor of Fostering Empathy Through Museums (2016), and Designing for Empathy (2019), which are reference books in empathy-building through museums, a new field of inquiry she pioneered in 2014. Elif Gokcigdem developed Designing for Empathy® as an intellectual framework, and an international platform for multidisciplinary, multisector, and multicultural collaborations to deepen their understanding of empathy, and to develop strategies, scholarship, and empathy-building experiences that consider the wellbeing of the whole —all of humanity and the planet. In 2018, Elif curated and co-chaired the world’s first summit on Fostering Universal Ethics and Compassion through Museums with HH The 14th Dalai Lama in Dharamshala, India. Elif grew up in Istanbul, Turkey, studying history of art, Islamic art and mysticism, and later, museum studies in the U.S. Elif’s 30 years of professional experience includes academia, museums, and a major corporation where she established and led multimillion-dollar strategic international partnerships in arts, culture, museums, and biodiversity conservation around the world.