Hakan Gonen is a research assistant and PhD student pursuing an academic degree in International Relations at the Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey. His research activity includes the security and foreign policies of modern Japan, the US-Japan security and political relations, international relations of East Asia.

From MA studies on, he has written several academic articles and book reviews on Japanese foreign policy and the US-Japan political and security relations. The most prominent of these studies is his MA thesis, which was recently published by Alp Publications with the title "Modern Japan in Search of National Security: Japan-US Alliance Diplomacy during the Cold War". He is also the assistant editor of the Turkish Yearbook of Asia-Pacific Studies led by Prof. Dr. A. Mete Tuncoku.