University Senate

Barış Tan received his bachelor’s degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from Boğaziçi University. He earned his M.E. degree in Industrial and Systems Engineering, M.S.E. Graduate Certificate in Manufacturing Systems, and Ph.D. in Operations Research at the University of Florida. From 1994 to 2024, he served as a professor of Business Administration and Industrial Engineering, Vice President for Academic Affairs, Dean of the College of Administrative Sciences and Economics, and Director of the Graduate School of Business at Koç University. On March 1, 2024, he joined Özyeğin University as a professor of Industrial Engineering and Business Administration. He was appointed as President on July 26, 2024. His areas of expertise include the design and control of production systems, supply chain management, and stochastic modelling. Prof. Tan has numerous publications and projects in these fields. Barış Tan is the recipient of the Turkish Academy of Sciences Distinguished Young Scholar Award, the TUBITAK fellowship, the NATO Science Fellowship, as well as best paper awards for his publications. Prof. Tan has served as a visiting faculty member at Harvard MIT, University of Cambridge, University College London, and Politecnico di Milano. He continues to contribute to advisory and management boards of various universities and institutions around the world.

M. İrşadi Aksun received his B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from Middle East Technical University and his Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1990. Upon completing his Ph.D., he worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the same university until 1992. After his postdoctoral training, he joined the Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering at Bilkent University, where he served until 2001. In 2001, Prof. Aksun joined the Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering at Koç University. He served as the Dean of the Faculty of Engineering from 2004 to 2009 and as the Vice President for Research and Development from 2009 to 2021. He has continued to serve as a faculty member in the same department, with his tenure extending until September 2024. Prof. Aksun’s research interests include electromagnetic field theory, computational electromagnetics and optics, optical and RF antennas and propagation, and nano-optics and plasmonics. He has received several prestigious awards, including the “TÜBİTAK Incentive Award” in 1994, “The Best Professor Award” from Bilkent University students in 2001, and the “TÜBİTAK Science Award” in 2007. He was elected as a principal member of the Turkish Academy of Sciences in 2011. He was appointed as Vice President for Research, Innovation and Impact at Özyeğin University as of September 1, 2024.

A. Tanju Erdem received a B.S. degree in electrical and electronics engineering and a B.S. degree in physics in 1986 from Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey. He received an M.S. degree in 1988 and a Ph.D. degree in 1990, both in electrical engineering, from University of Rochester, Rochester, New York, USA. He was a member of the Research Laboratories of Eastman Kodak Company, Rochester, New York, USA, from 1990 to 1998, where he worked on various aspects of image and video processing. He has co-founded, and served until 2009 as the CTO, of Momentum, A.S., a 3D digital media technologies company established in Istanbul, Turkey, in 1998. He has served on the ISO-MPEG committee from 1991 to 1998. He was the Chair of the IEEE Signal Processing Society Turkey Chapter and served as an Associate Editor for Signal Processing: Image Communication during 2010-2014. He joined Özyeğin University in 2009, where he served as Head of the Computer Science Department during 2012-2014 and as Dean of the Engineering Faculty as well as Director of the Graduate School of Engineering and Science during 2014-2018.

H. Canan Sümer graduated from Middle East Technical University in 1980 with a B.S. Degree in Psychology and received her Master’s Degree in Clinical Psychology from the same university in 1988. She received her Master’s degree from University of New Haven in 1991 and her Ph.D. from Kansas State University in 1996 in the area of Industrial and Organizational Psychology. Between 1996 and 2019 she worked as a Faculty Member in the Department of Psychology, Middle East Technical University and served as the Chair of the Department from 2017 to 2019. Her research interests include development of personnel selection tests and techniques, personality assessment, performance management and culture, workplace mistreatment, and leadership and gender issues at work. Dr. Sümer is on the editorial board of a number of national and international journals in her field. She is a member of the Turkish Psychological Association and Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, and has represented Turkey in EFPA’s Assessment Board. She has led a number of large scale projects on military personnel selection and performance management, and was an active member of NATO- HFM Panel’s Task Group on Military Recruitment and Retention. More recently she was involved in a project sponsored by the Scientific and Technological Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK) in which a computerized selection system along with an assessment center was developed to be used in the selection of blue-collar and white-collar employees. She is among the inventors of five national and two international patented inventions that came out of this project. Dr. Sümer, who has national and international publications on personnel selection, personality assessment, performance management, military retention, and gender role stereotypes topics, is currently the lead researcher in a TUBİTAK project titled “Workplace Mistreatment from Incivility to Harassment: Outcomes and Intervention Methods from a Cultural Perspective.”

Prof. Dr. Özlem Yenerer Çakmut started her undergraduate education at Istanbul University Faculty of Law in 1988 and completed it in 1992. She completed her Master's Degree, which she started at Marmara University, Institute of Social Sciences, Department of Public Law, by successfully presenting her thesis titled "Search in Criminal Procedure Law and Immunity of Housing". Afterwards, she earned the right to do her doctorate in Marmara University Social Sciences Institute Public Law Department, and in this process, she completed her doctoral thesis named "Examination of Consent to Medical Intervention in terms of Criminal Law", during which she did research in Germany (Freiburg in Brs. and Cologne). In 1994, she started to work as a Research Assistant at Marmara University, Faculty of Law, Department of Criminal and Criminal Procedure Law; she was appointed as Assistant Professor in 2003. She completed her associate professorship work on "Determination of Pedigree and the Crime of Changing the Child's Pedigree" and passed the Associate Professorship Colloquium, which she entered in 2009, unanimously, and received the title of Associate Professor. She became a Professor in 2014 with her Professorship titled "Disturbing the Peace and Tranquillity of People and Noise Crimes". Prof. Çakmut has published works and presentations in her field. She has been working at Özyeğin University Faculty of Law since 2012. As of February 2022, she took up the position of Dean.

Prof. Dr. Aslıhan Ünlü graduated from Istanbul Technical University (ITU) with a Bachelor’s degree in Architecture in 1986 and completed her Master’s and PhD degrees from the same institution. She continued her academic career at ITU between 1988-2020 where she received “Full Professorship” in 2014. Dr. Ünlü completed her postdoc research project titled “Energy and Visual Performance Appraisal of Electrochromic Windows Integrated with Overhangs in Different Climates” at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory of the University of California between 2003-2004. Being a Fulbright Fellow, she worked and taught as a Visiting Professor at Roger Williams University, School of Architecture, Art and Historic Preservation at Bristol, Rhode Island between 2012-2013. Her main research areas focus on sustainable building technologies and construction, high performance façade & window systems and her research articles have been published nationally and internationally. She has supervised several master and PhD studies. Dr. Unlu worked as the ITU coordinator of EU Erasmus Strategic Partnership Project "Re-use of modernist buildings - RMB" which was completed on September 2019. In addition, she is an editorial board member of Facade Design and Engineering (JFDE), a member of European Facade Network (EFN), a member of Turkish Chamber of Architects, Association of Architecture Education (ArchEd), National Association of Environmental Control.

Prof. Dr. Mehmet Burçin Ünlü received his BSc and MSc degrees in Physics from Middle East Technical University (METU) in 1996 and Boğaziçi University in 1998, respectively. He obtained his Ph.D. degree from the Stevens Institute of Technology in 2004. He then worked as a post-doctoral research fellow at the University of California, Irvine in the Tu & Yuen Functional Onco-Imaging lab (Department of Radiological Sciences, School of Medicine) for five years. During his postdoctoral studies, he focused on medical imaging and medical physics. Between 2009-2023, he was a faculty member in the Physics Department at Boğaziçi University, serving as department head from 2018-2020 and 2022-2023. In 2017-2018, he worked at the Laboratory of Artificial Intelligence in Medicine and Biomedical Physics at Stanford University for one year with the support of a Fulbright scholarship. Additionally, he spent 6 months at the Hokkaido University School of Medicine working on proton therapy research. He maintains an ongoing collaboration with the Hokkaido University Faculty of Engineering and Faculty of Medicine. In 2023, Dr. Ünlü relocated the Laboratory of Medical and Biological Physics from Boğaziçi University, which he founded in 2012, to the Faculty of Engineering at Özyeğin University. His areas of expertise include medical and biomedical physics, medical imaging, image formation algorithms, biological physics, and computational cancer biology. As of October 2023, Dr. Ünlü was appointed as Acting Dean of Faculty of Aviation and Aeronautical Science.

Prof. Dr. Mahmut Bayazıt received his bachelor's degree in Psychology from Boğaziçi University in 1995 and his master's degree in Industrial and Organizational Psychology from Baruch College, City University of New York, in 1998. He completed his Ph.D. in 2003 at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations, specializing in Organizational Development, Human Resource Studies, and Social Statistics. Between 2003 and 2007, he worked as an Assistant Professor in Industrial and Organizational Psychology at Koç University. From 2007 to 2024, he served at Sabancı University’s School of Management as an Assistant Professor and later as an Associate Professor in Organizational Studies. During his tenure at Sabancı University, he was a Visiting Scholar at Cornell University from 2010 to 2011 and at the Sauder School of Business, University of British Columbia, from 2016 to 2017. Prof. Dr. Bayazıt's research interests include leadership and employee motivation, gender and leadership, flexible work arrangements and work-family conflict, strategic HRM systems, and compensation and reward system effectiveness. He joined the Faculty of Business as a Professor in Management in September 2024 and started the role of Director of the Graduate School of Business in January 2025.

Prof. Dr. Okan Örsan Özener received his B.Sc (2001) and M.S. (2003) degrees in Industrial Engineering from Middle East Technical University. In 2006, he obtained his M.S. degree in Operations Research and in 2008 his Ph. D in Industrial and Systems Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology. He worked as a research assistant at Middle East Technical University between 2001 and 2003, and at Georgia Institute of Technology between 2003 and 2008. His research interests are in data science, data-driven optimization, integer/combinatorial optimization, machine learning, non-cooperative/cooperative game theory and supply chain management applications. Prof. Özener has been a faculty member in the Department of Industrial Engineering since 2008 and has served as the Head of the Department of Industrial Engineering between 2016-2022 and as the Vice Dean of the Engineering Faculty from 2022-2024. He was appointed as Deputy Dean of The Faculty of Engineering and Deputy Director Graduate School of Engineering as of January 2025.

Dr. Gözkan received his B.A. degree in Philosophy from Boğaziçi University in 1994. She obtained her first master’s degree in philosophy at Boğaziçi University and her second master's degree in developmental psychology at Koç University, Department of Psychology. She completed her PhD in developmental psychology at Clark University in 2012. Dr. Gözkan's research focuses on social and emotional development during adolescence from the perspective of positive youth development and self-determination theory. Dr. Gözkan has been working in the Department of Psychology at the Faculty of Social Sciences at Özyeğin University since 2012. She served as the Head of the Department of Psychology between 2017-2020. Since September 2023, he has been working as the Director of the Institute of Social Sciences.

Nergis Uyan is the Director of SELI. She graduated from Middle East Technical University’s Foreign Language Education Department in 1995 and she received her MA in Management in Education from Bilkent University in 2005. She completed her DTEFLA from the University of Cambridge in 1999 and also received her ADEM (Advanced Diploma in English Language Teaching Management) in 2001.

She worked in several positions at Bilkent University School of English Language (BUSEL) including English Language Instructor, Head of Teaching Unit, Teacher Development Coordinator, Teacher Trainer and Member of the BUSEL Directorate from September 1995 to February 2010. She has also been working as a CELTA Trainer since 2007. Nergis started working at Özyeğin University’s School of Languages as the Director in the 2009-2010 Academic year Spring Semester.

Prof. Dr. Münir Tolga Akçura received his bachelor's degree in Industrial Engineering from Boğaziçi University in 1990 and his master's degree in Business Administration from the same university in 1996. He completed his MBA in 1998 and his Ph.D. in Marketing in 2000 at Carnegie Mellon University. Between 1990 and 1991, he worked as an Industrial Engineer at Procter & Gamble in Istanbul. From 1991 to 1993, he served as a Product Manager at Procter & Gamble in London and Manchester. Between 1993 and 1994, he was the Manager of the New Product Planning Department at Procter & Gamble's European Technical Center. From 2000 to 2007, he worked as an Assistant Professor in Marketing at Purdue University, and from 2007 to 2010, he served as an Associate Professor in Marketing at Long Island University. Dr. Akçura joined Özyeğin University’s Faculty of Business as an Associate Professor in September 2009 and was appointed as a Professor in December 2018. Prof. Dr. Akçura’s research areas include Information Technology/Computer Science and Marketing, Expert Systems, Brand Valuation, Consumer Learning Behavior, Structural Decision-Making Models, Brand Equity and its Dynamic Structuring, Pricing, and Competitive Strategies related to Brand Valuation/Brand Equity. He has been serving as a Member of the University Senate since September 2020.

Prof. Dr. Hülya Turgut, having a bachelor’s degree of Architecture, a Master of Architecture and a Doctor of Architecture from Istanbul Technical University, worked as an academician at the department of Architecture in Istanbul Technical University between 1984 and 2010. In addition, she studied at the Joint Centre for Urban Design in the Department of Architecture in Oxford Brookes University, England (1987) as a research fellow, and worked in the Center for Environmental Design Research in California University, Berkeley as a Visiting Scholar (1996). Dr. Turgut, working as a professor since 1998 at ITU, worked as a vice rector in charge of infrastructure, building investments and management and as well as an advisory of rectorship. Between 2012- 2015, she worked as a Director of the Interior Architecture Department at Faculty of Architecture and Design at Maltepe University. Prof. Dr. Turgut has been working as a faculty member at Özyeğin University Faculty of Architecture and Design since September 2015. Having served as a Senate Member since November 2016, Turgut served as Co-Chair of the Executive Board of Özyeğin University and TÜSİAD-SKF Sustainable Development Platform between 2017 and 2021.

Turgut, who conducts research and publications in the fields of “Architectural Design Education, Culture and Space Studies, Traditional and Contemporary Housing, City: Change and Transformations”, is also the coordinator of the ‘OZU_UHL’ Urban and Housing Research Laboratory. In addition to her academic studies, Turgut continues her professional architectural studies; she has various building design and applications, jury memberships and awards in architectural project competitions nationally and internationally.

She is a joint co-coordinator of the IAPS-CS ‘Culture and Space’ Network; under the framework of this network, she has been chairing “International Culture and Space Symposium Series“and organizing “Culture and Space Design Workshops and Student Competitions”. Dr. Turgut is a co-editor of IAPS-CSBE Network Book Series. Dr. Turgut has been the coordinator of the International IAPS-CS ‘Culture and Space’ network since 1997; within this framework, she is the scientific chair of the international ‘Culture and Space’ meetings and the editor of the book series; She has also been running the student activities of the network since 2012; within this scope, she organizes symposiums, article selections, design competitions and workshops.

Dr. Hatice Küçükönal graduated with a bachelor’s degree in English Language Teaching from Anadolu University Faculty of Education in 1983. She later pursued her master’s degrees in TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) from Bilkent University and in Aviation Management from Anadolu University Graduate School of Social Sciences in 1989 and 1998, respectively. After completing her Ph.D. in Aviation Management in 2001, she became an Assistant Professor. Dr. Küçükönal also held the position of Deputy Director from 2003 to 2008 while being a faculty member at the School of Civil Aviation. She established the School of Aviation at Özyegin University in 2011, where she served as a director from 2011 to 2016 and as vice dean of the Faculty of Aviation and Aeronautical Sciences from 2016 to 2023. During the years 2012 to 2023, she held the role of Department Chair of Aviation Management and fulfilled the position of Accountable Manager of the Approved Training Organization (ATO). Her primary research interests center around air transportation management, airport operations, airport security, and airport planning and management. She has presented papers at national and international conferences and has published articles in both refereed and non-refereed journals. She also served as an advisory and scientific board member in aviation symposiums held in Turkey and worked as a researcher on two research projects sponsored and published within the scope of TUBITAK and Anadolu University Scientific Research Projects. In addition to her academic pursuits, Dr. Küçükönal held positions of responsibility within the field of air transportation. She served as a member of the working committee for the Special Expertise Commission on Air Transportation for the 8th and 9th Development Plan of the State Planning Organization, as well as a member of the working committee established by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation under the Ministry of Transportation and Communication to prepare reports for the 2004 Economy Congress of Turkey. She held positions on both the Civil Aviation Commission and the Education Commission, established through the collaborative efforts of YÖK and SHGM in 2012. Additionally, she assumed the role of Head of the Pilot Training Sub-committee. Dr. Küçükönal has been a member of the Board of Trustees of AABI (Aviation Accreditation Board International) since 2020 and has been actively engaged in the AABI accreditation audit team since 2021. Dr. Küçükönal has been serving as a Senate Member since June 2011.

Prof. Dr. Safiye Feyza Çinicioğlu graduated as a Civil Engineer from Boğaziçi University in 1974 and earned her master’s degree in the same field from the University of Sheffield in 1976. Between 1976 and 1982, she worked in the industry as a Civil Engineer. She then completed her Ph.D. in Geotechnical Engineering at Boğaziçi University’s Civil Engineering Department between 1983 and 1986.Dr. Çinicioğlu continued her academic career as a faculty member at Anadolu University from 1986 to 1993 and at Istanbul University’s Civil Engineering Department from 1993 to 2018. At Istanbul University, she was awarded the title of Professor in 1996 and held various administrative roles, including Head of the Division, Head of the Department, and Director of the Institute of Science. She is a member of various national and international professional organizations. Between 2005 and 2011, Prof. Dr. Çinicioğlu served as the Secretary-General and Board Member of the Turkish Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (ISSMGE, Turkey branch). She then served as the President of the organization for ten years, from 2011 to 2021, and has continued as a board member since 2021. In 2022, she was appointed as a member of the ISSMGE European Board. Throughout her academic career, she has participated in numerous research and applied projects as a principal investigator or researcher and has supervised completed and ongoing master's and doctoral theses. Her primary research interests include the design and construction of embankments on soft soils, macro and micro soil behavior, observational methods, and soil-structure interaction. Within this framework, Dr. Çinicioğlu focuses her research on the development of new theoretical and analytical methods. Prof. Dr. Çinicioğlu joined the Faculty of Engineering, Civil Engineering Department, in September 2018 and has been serving as a Senate Member since March 2022.

Prof. Dr. Ali İzzet Tekcan completed his undergraduate education in psychology at Boğaziçi University in 1989. He received his MA in cognitive psychology in 1996 and his PhD in 1996 from The American University (Washington, DC). He worked as a faculty member in the Department of Psychology at Boğaziçi University between 1998 and 2024, during which time he served as Department Head (2010-2012, 2022-2023), Dean of Students (2004-2006), and Vice Rector for Academic Affairs (2012-2021). He was a visiting researcher at the University of Leeds in 2008-2009 and at Aarhus University in 2010 and 2018. He has received the TÜBA Outstanding Young Scientist Award (2001), the Outstanding Achievement in Research Award (2001) and the Outstanding Achievement in Teaching Award (2020) from the Boğaziçi University Foundation. His research interests include autobiographical and social memory processes, self-memory relationship, and memory processes in psychopathologies. Prof. Dr. Tekcan joined the Department of Psychology, Faculty of Social Sciences, Özyeğin University in February 2024 and was appointed as a Senate Member in September 2024.

Dr. Özge Samancı completed her bachelor's degree (1995) and master's degree (1998) in the Department of History at Boğaziçi University. She received her Ph.D. in History and Civilizations from EHESS (École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales) in Paris in 2009, with a dissertation titled "19th Century Istanbul Food Culture." She worked at Yeditepe University's Faculty of Fine Arts, Department of Gastronomy and Culinary Arts, first as a lecturer and later as an Assistant Professor between 2003 and 2015. In 2015, she was appointed as an Associate Professor in the same faculty. Associate Professor Dr. Samancı joined Özyeğin University's Faculty of Applied Sciences In September 2017. She currently serves as the head of the Gastronomy and Culinary Arts department, where she teaches courses on the fundamentals of gastronomy, food history, and Turkish culinary culture. Additionally, she teaches food history courses in the graduate program of Design, Technology, and Society at the Faculty of Architecture and Design. Her research focuses on modernization in late Ottoman culinary culture and Ottoman-Turkish food history. She has participated as an invited speaker in numerous national and international congresses and seminars on Ottoman-Turkish food history and has published works in Turkish, English, and French. She has served as a member of the Gastronomy Tourism Commission at the 3rd Tourism Council and has worked as an advisor for Turkish Cuisine publications commissioned by the Presidency and the Ministry of Culture. She has also contributed to many national and international publications and documentaries on Turkish culinary culture. As of February 2025, Associate Professor Dr. Samancı has been appointed as the Vice Dean of the Faculty of Applied Sciences.