Graduated from the Dept. of Western Languages and Literature at Boğaziçi University, Ersanlı received her PhD in the Dept. of Political Science and International Relations at the same university. Since 1990, she has been a faculty member in the Dept. of Political Science and International Relations at Marmara University. Being a peace and human rights activist, she was chosen for the party assembly of DTP in 2009. In 2011 she was arrested within the scope of the Anti-Terror Law while she was a member of the party assembly of BDP and the constitutional commission. She was released in July 2012. In her latest book Bulut Falı [Fortune-Telling with Clouds], she wrote about the political punitive style and culture in Turkey and her own experience in prison for the years 2011-2012