The controversial politician and leader of the True Path Party, Tansu Çiller (born 1946), served as the prime minister of Turkey from 1993 until 1996, during a period of extreme political upheaval and economic volatility. She began her career as a professor of economics before entering politics in 1990.

Tansu Çiller was born in 1946 in Istanbul into a comfortable middle-class home, the daughter of a retired government official. She went to the American Girls' School and then on to Bosphorus University (formerly Robert College), from which she graduated with a degree in economics in 1967. In 1963, at the age of 17, she married Özer Üçuran, who adopted her second name; he soon became an influential figure in her life. Çiller came to the United States for higher education and received her Master's degree and Ph.D. in economics from the Universities of New Hampshire and Connecticut, respectively. Before...