Gunel Madadli (she/her) was born and raised in Azerbaijan. Her intellectual outlook is shaped by the security concerns and conservative gender norms that marked the South Caucasus in the 1990s.

She holds bachelor’s and master's degrees in international relations and has finalized her PhD studies in Political Science. Her academic trajectory reflects a strong commitment to bridging theory and practice in foreign policy analysis.

Her research examines feminist foreign policy, green security, and security governance. She analyzes gender as a data category in policymaking and develops feminist approaches to climate and environmental policy. Her work further explores the political backlash against liberal agendas, including feminist and green policies, and how such resistance reshapes democratic governance and security discourse.

Across research, teaching, and policy engagement, she combines critical theory with policy-oriented analysis, attentive to both structural power relations and empirical detail.