Secil Pacaci Elitok received her Ph.D in economics from University of Utah (USA), where she specialized in economic growth, development economics and international trade, in 2008. She worked as an instructor throughout her graduate studies at the Economics Department of University of Utah before joining the Maltepe University, Istanbul (Turkey), in which she had the opportunity to participate in research projects on migration and coordinate the Erasmus program as well as enriching her teaching portfolio. She received the Higher Education Teaching Specialist (HETS) designation from the University of Utah in December 2006.

She joined the Hamburg Institute of International Economics (HWWI) in June 2009 as Marie Curie research fellow in the context of the EU Marie Curie Research Training Network TOM (Transnationality of Migrants) and worked as a senior researcher at MRG (Migration Research Group).

Her main research interests are international migration with a specific focus on migration from and to Turkey as well as high-skilled migration and remittances.

She is currently a post-doctoral research fellow at the University of Hamburg.