Eda Acara is working as a researcher and project coordinator for the Raising Ambition Project. Holding a Ph.D. in Geography and Planning from Queen’s University, Canada, a Master's in Gender and Women’s Studies from St. Mary’s University, Canada, and a Bachelor of Sociology from Middle East Technical University, Turkey, Dr. Acara's educational background is notably interdisciplinary. She has published works on the critical geographies of water, environmental justice, environmental and urban policy planning, and feminist urban politics in the Global South. Additionally, she has been affiliated with the Urban Policy Planning and Local Governments Program at Middle East Technical University. Prior to IPC, she worked as a lecturer at METU, Ankara University, and TED University. She also established the social and economic geography curriculum for Bakırcay University’s Geography program and served as an assistant professor of geography.

Dr. Acara is a contributing lead author for the "Environmental Change, Conflict, and Human Migration" report for The Mediterranean Experts on Climate and Environmental Change (MedECC). She has extensive consultancy experience as a social and gender expert, particularly in risk assessment and policy crafting for green infrastructure projects financed by the World Bank and EBRD. Notable projects include her role as a gender and economic inclusion expert for EBRD's Green City Action Plans in Istanbul and Ankara, in conjunction with the World Bank's Turkish Irrigation Modernization Project (TIMP). She also has experience in developing interactive and digital capacity-building modules for government institutions, UN organizations, and local governments on issues such as climate justice, urban resilience, and social inequalities.

In the past, Dr. Acara has been honored with the Canada Research Scholarship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and a dissertation scholarship from the Association of American Geographers. She has received the Şirin Tekeli Research Award from Sabancı University and the Emerging Scholar Award from the Gender, Place, and Culture Journal. Her articles have been published in the Annals of the Association of American Geographers and Urban Geography. Her 2019 article in the Annals of the Association of American Geographers, "Sequestering a River: What the Political Ecology of the 'Dead' Ergene River Tells Us About Neoliberal Urbanization in Today's Turkey," examines how water sequestration, as a byproduct of neoliberal urbanization, has become integral to Turkey's authoritarian urban regime.

Her current interests lie in harnessing digital technologies for data analysis in climate justice and sustainability, demonstrated in her research funded by the Şirin Tekeli Research Award. Her publication "Gender Equity and Fairness in the Digital Food Markets" delves into algorithmic justice, cyber violence, and digitalization's impacts on women in Turkey's food industry, emphasizing the need for digital tools that foster gender equality.