About

I am a trained architect and architectural historian whose research focuses on the intersection of human sciences, urban/architectural space, and uses of digital tools that facilitate scholarship in these fields. My dissertation, “Madness and Empire: The Ottoman Asylum, 1830-1930,” is an interdisciplinary study of the connections between psychiatry, architecture, and the city. The dissertation was shortlisted for the BRAIS-De Gruyter 2019 Prize in Islamic Studies. This research received support from Social Science Research Council and Turkish Cultural Foundation.

I have been actively working at the intersection of digital initiatives and design since 2011. I am the co-founder of SpatioScholar, a scholarly digital platform for temporospatial analysis, which has received recognition from New York City Digital Humanities group and an NJIT Seed Grant in 2017.. I am also the co-director of NJIT’s Digital Spatial History Lab and Center for Humanities in Extended Reality (CHXR). Under the umbrella of CHXR, we have been developing another tool, eXploR, to create and experience immersive historical narratives using extended reality.

I have combined many of my interests in a place-based interactive installation that employed artificial intelligence, [AI]stanbul, developed for the 2018 Istanbul Design Biennial in collaboration with colleagues from Informatics and Digital Design. The installation was on view at Luma-Arles, France and C-Mine in Genk, Belgium during the summer of 2019 as part of the A School of Schools: Design as Learning exhibition.

I have a bachelor of architecture degree from Istanbul Mimar Sinan University, a master’s degree in history and theory of architecture from Yıldız Technical University, and a Ph.D. in Urban Systems jointly offered by NJIT and Rutgers University. I have presented the findings of my research in numerous national and international conferences on Ottoman and Middle Eastern history, medical history, architectural history, digital humanities, and digital art history. In addition to conference presentations, I have given invited talks on Ottoman mental hospitals and uses of digital tools in understanding history at Columbia University, Duke University, CUNY, and University of Liverpool among others. I teach courses on architectural history and digital humanities. I worked as the managing editor of Arredamento Mimarlik, the Istanbul-based architecture/design monthly. I am currently the Associate Dean of the Albert Dorman Honors College at NJIT.