Aysit Tansel is a professor of Economics at the Middle East Technical University, Ankara. She received her BS from Middle East Technical University with high honors, her MA from University of Minnesota and her Ph.D. from State University of New York. She was a Fulbright Fellow at the Cornell University during 2011-2012.She was a research fellow at the Yale University during 1990-1993. She is also a research fellow of the Economic Research Forum (ERF) in Cairo. Her main area of interest is labor economics with a focus on economics of education, empirical models of economic growth with emphasis on health and education and educational inequalities and gender gap in education and economic growth, returns to education, private tutoring, economics of gender, labor force participation and unemployment. Examples of her publications are “Job Satisfaction in Britain: Individual and Job Related Factors” (joint with Ş. Gazioğlu), Applied Economics(2006); “Brain Drain from Turkey: An Investigation of Students’ Return Intention” (joint with N. D. Güngör)Applied Economics (2008); "Determinants of Schooling Attainment for Boys and Girls in Turkey: Individual, Household and Community Factors", Economics of Education Review (2002); "Wage and Labor Supply Effects of Illness in Cote d’lvoire and Ghana: Instrumental Variables Estimates for Days Disabled" (joint with T.P. Schultz) Journal of Development Economics (1997); "Schooling Attainment, Parental Education and Gender in Cote d’lvoire and Ghana", Economic Development and Cultural Change (1997); “Is There an Informal Employment Wage Penalty in Egypt: Evidence from Panel Data,”(joint with H. I. Keskin and Z. A. Ozdemir) Empirical Economics(2020).

She joined IZA as a Research Fellow in May 2004.