Team

PROJECT TEAM

Damla Kaleli graduated as an Architect from Istanbul Technical University, Department of Architecture in 2014. During her undergraduate education and simultaneous work experience in Omerler Architecture design studio, she decided to focus on sustainability in architecture. Therefore, she completed her Master of Science degree in Architectural Engineering: Environmental Design at the University of Bath, in the UK between 2014 and 2015. She has been involved in the ENLITEN Project working group to analyze thermal comfort sensor results to complete her dissertation. Her dissertation has focused on thermal comfort in the UK dwellings during summertime extreme temperatures. The article for which she is a co-author was published at the 9th Windsor Conference. In 2016, she started working as an Environmental Designer and Sustainability Consultant at Etude sustainability consultancy office in London. Thanks to this experience that lasted for 3 years, she contributed to the preparation of sustainability reports for the City of London and its various districts, and had the opportunity to work with leading architecture and energy consultancy companies in many projects, focusing on policies to reduce energy efficiency and approach zero carbon in these buildings. In addition, she received the Passive House Designer certificate given by the Passive House Institute and has also worked as a Passive House Consultant on many projects in the UK. As of 2019, she returned to Turkey and started her second master’s degree in Alternative Architectural Practices program at MEF University. During this education, she took part in the production of the micro life unit called Volu-te and aimed to produce a zero-energy smart urban cabin. The project they produced in this context was entitled to receive a grant from the Tübitak 1512 program, and as a result, she took part in the establishment of Alter8 Research and Development company as one of the partners. She has joined the CEEE staff since June 2022 to continue her work on sustainability.

Gökçe Tomrukçu graduated from Ozyegin University, Department of Architecture with an honors degree in 2020. Due to her interest in sustainable architecture, energy efficiency and climate change, she started her master’s education at Ozyegin University in the same year, aiming to concentrate on her professional career in this field. During her graduate education, she worked as a teaching assistant in the Physical Environment Control undergraduate courses. She also conducted a workshop program with the theme of Ecovillage, which includes sustainable architecture and ecological design parameters, in undergraduate students’ research internships. In addition to these studies, she attended part as a research student in the ongoing national research project of the Ozyegin University Building Materials and Physics Laboratory (BMP Lab). In this context, she participated an active role in the project on the development of near-zero energy efficient long-term strategies for educational buildings in Turkey, supported by Tubitak. In her master’s thesis, she worked on the effects of climate change on the energy performance and thermal comfort of buildings and on the development of energy efficient strategies in the process of adaptation to the climate. She has published various articles and papers in these fields during her education. Her research interests include the effects of climate change on building energy performance and climate adaptation process, energy efficiency in buildings and nearly/net-zero energy buildings. She joined the Center of Energy, Environment and Economy (CEEE) staff as an Energy Efficiency Specialist in order to continue her work on sustainability since February 2023.

Ruken Karakus, is graduated from Istanbul Technical University, Architecture and Landscape Architecture Bachelor programs with a double degree. She spent 2017 in Spain, working in an environmental and sustainability NGO. After she came back, she started working in an architectural design firm called anonim.istanbul. There she took part in architectural and landscape design projects, at conceptual, drawing and application processes; some of the design competitions she attended were also awarded. Between 2019-2021, she started her master’s joint degree Smart Cities and Communities (SMACCs) with a full scholarship from Erasmus Mundus program; at Edinburgh, Heriot-Watt University and Spain-Bilbao, University of the Basque Country. through that she gained expertise on Sustainability and Energy Efficiency in Buildings, Urban Planning, Industry and Transportation. Her thesis was about The Impact of Occupant Behavior on Energy Demand at Residential Buildings. In January 2022, she obtained LEED Green Associate credentials to further specialize on urban sustainability. She joined Özyeğin University, Center of Energy, Environment and Economy as a sustainability strategy specialist.

Kaan Gürel successfully completed his undergraduate education at the Middle East Technical University with an honors degree in Mechanical Engineering in 2018. In the same year, due to his interest in sustainable environment and energy systems, he started his graduate education in the Mechanical Engineering department of the same university on Biomass and Coal Combustion and graduated in 2021.
During both his undergraduate and graduate education, he conducted studies on Biomass and Coal Combustion in the Clean Combustion Technologies Laboratory of Middle East Technical University and published various articles and papers. He worked as a Teaching and Research Assistant in the field of Mechanical Engineering for a total of 4 years during and after his graduate education. In August 2023, he started to work as an Energy Efficiency Specialist at the Center for Energy, Environment and Economy (CEEE) in order to continue his studies on sustainability and energy efficiency.

ACADEMIC TEAM

Assistant Professor Dr. Selenga Gürmen graduated summa cum laude from Bogazici University with a BA in Psychology in 2010. She obtained her Masters and PhD in in Marriage and Family Therapy from University of Connecticut in 2012 and 2015, respectively. Currently, she is an assistant professor in Psychology department at Özyeğin University, Istanbul, Turkey. She is teaching both undergraduate and graduate classes and super vising MFT trainees. Her research on Marriage and Family Therapy field focuses mostly on issues around coparenting, divorce, and highconflict therapy. She also conducts studies on the effects of social media and smartphones on romantic relationships as well as pa rentchild relationships in the digital age. Dr. Gürmen adapts the family systems approach to macrolevel complex societal problems (climate change, energy and resource crisis, gender inequality, violence etc.) to as sess the dynamics of collective behavior change and de velop models for intervention and prevention strategies. Dr. Gürmen conducts therapy with individuals, couples, and families. She provides various seminars, workshops and training programs where she supports couples and parents during times of crisis and developmental tran sition processes. In addition to her clinical experiences, she is one of the few AAMFTapproved supervisors in Turkey.

Özgür Ertunç is an aeronautical engineer with focus on thermofluid dynamics. He completed his doctorate study on turbulent flows in 2006 at the Fluid Mechanics Institute (LSTM) of FiedrichAlexanderUniversity (FAU) in Erlangen Germany. He founded the “Unsteady Fluid Mechanics” and “Fluid Dynamics and Turbulence” re search groups in 2002 and 2010, respectively at FAU LSTM. He established “Fluid Dynamics and Spray Laboratory” at Özyeğin University and he is developing “Combustion Laboratory” and a “Wind Tunnel Facility” for research on the application of transitional and tur bulent flows, combustion, multiphase flows (droplets, sprays and particle laden flows), and optimization of flow devices and processes. He conducted more than 30 industry oriented projects and 16 fundamental re search projects. His research have been supported by the EU, the German Research Foundation (DFG), German Aerospace Center (DLR), The German Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), TÜBİTAK, Bavarian Research Foundation (BFS), SIEMENS, BMW, Audi, VW, Boehringer Ingelheim, Roche, ATOTECH, ARCELIK, BOSCH, Ford Otomotiv Sanayi A.Ş., TEI.

Göktürk Poyrazoğlu is a faculty at Özyeğin University, Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering. After receiving his master’s degree in 2013 and docto rate degree in Electrical Engineering in State University of New York at Buffalo (SUNYBuffalo) in 2015, he wor ked at Mitsubishi Electrical Research Laboratory (MERL) and Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) in the USA. He took part in research on the adaptation of new te chnologies that will provide innovative changes in the electricity energy industry. He has worked on energy markets, smart energy solutions, energy transmissi on planning, energy consumption management and energy efficiency. As a team leader in the USA Alevo Analytics company, he has provided consultancy servi ces to many countries and state energy ministries for the establishment of an energy storage system road map. He is working as a consultant at Turkey’s Energy Market Operator (EPIAŞ), Electricity Distribution Services Association (ELDER), Turkcell and the US Acelerex in op timization, energy efficiency, energy storage, artificial intelligence, and in the emobility field. He served as IEEE Turkey Student Committee Coordinator between 20182020, currently he serves as Coordinator of IEEE Turkey Industrial Relations.

Dr. Altuğ M. Başol received his BSc and MSc degrees from Bogazici University in Istanbul from chemical and mechanical engineering respectively. He received his Ph.D degree from ETH Zurich in Switzerland in 2013 and continued to work as a post-doctoral researcher at the same university. Since 2014, he has been working as an Assistant Professor at Özyeğin University in the Mechanical Engineering Department. His research interests are numerical methods, heat transfer, thermal radiation, heat treatment furnaces, compressor and turbine aerothermodynamics. He successfully completed his TUBITAK – 3501 project and is currently involved in ongoing industry-university partnership projects with Sisecam and Arcelik. He also led and successfully completed other industry-university partnership projects with MAN Energy, Hitachi Energy Solutions, Ford Otosan.

PhD STUDENTS

Gökçe Ersel Ötkün is an architect and sustainability professional working on various scaled projects con currently. She received her BS from ODTU/METU in Department of Architecture. Regarding her deep inte rest in the field of sustainability she parlayed her graduate studies at Sheffield University, UK in the field of Sustainable Architectural Studies. After receiving her LEED Green Associate Certificate in 2011 she focu sed more on sustainability issues in design and carried out wide range of projects. She is still working in her own architecture&design firm following her experien ce and fund of knowledge in leading firms of Turkey such as Suyabatmaz&Demirel Architects, Emre Arolat Architects, Tabanlıoğlu Architects and FREA Architects. She has been working on her doctoral degree since 2018 at Özyeğin University, Design, Technology and Society Program in the specified topic of Sustainable Urban Transformations. As an active member of ISSP(International Society of Sustainability Professionals) and TurkishWIN, she is currently working as a sustai nability consultant for WWFTurkey, Brika Sustainability and several business firms on her area of expertise.

Canan was born in Istanbul, Turkey. She attended University of Istanbul and graduated with a doctorate degree in Dental Medicine in 1985. Canan received her Master of Business Administration degree from Bosporus University. She worked as a Doctor of Dental Medicine until she joined the Pharmaceutical Industry at the end of 1989, as a product manager in Hoechst Pharma (Sanofi today). She worked on various marketing and commercial leadership roles in the pharmaceutical industry. She moved to Paris France for a global marketing leadership role in pharmaceutical industry in 2004. After working 4 years based out of France as Global Leader for Metabolic Diseases, in March 2007 she joined General Electric Healthcare as VP of Marketing for Region International, responsible from Europe, Asia, Middle East, Africa & China. In March 2009, she was appointed as Chief Marketing Officer of Healthcare Systems and she moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin to join the Global Leadership team and worked on innovation, strategy, and marketing of new products. In November 2011, she has been promoted to Global General Manager of Mammography and has moved back to Paris, France to lead GE Healthcare Global Mammography business. Eventually, she has been appointed as President and CEO of GE Turkey in August 2012. In 2017, she has been given additional responsibility as Chief Growth Officer in MENAT region. Her responsibility was driving GE’s growth in Turkey, a leading emerging market until June 2021. She acted as a consultant and retained the title Chairwoman until June 2022. Currently she is an independent board member of Garanti BBVA since April 2019, and on the Board of Trustees and Board of SEV. She is also Deputy Chair of AmCham in Turkey. As of April 2022, she is Advisor to the Board of Tekfen Temas and as of November 2022 Advisor to the Executive Committee of Esin Avukatlık Baker McKenzie. In addition, Canan recently completed a master’s degree on Energy Technologies from Sabanci University (2015 September). She is often invited to give speeches at various industry events on, leadership, future of technology, digital transformation, and women in business. She has started her PhD at Ozyegin University in 2020 and is working on Energy Transition and sustainability.

PART-TIME STUDENTS

Seda Kurt is a student at Özyeğin University, Department of Architecture. In addition to her undergraduate education, she took an active role in many student clubs of the university, such as the Interdisciplinary Thinking Club and CineOzU, to continue her graphic design works. Additionally, she took part in the board of directors of the Interdisciplinary Thinking Club, which was established in 2019. She organized various events with Prof. M. Pınar Mengüç, the club’s advisor, for 2 years.

She spent a semester of her education life in Hungary within the scope of Erasmus+. Thanks to the urban planning and design courses she took there, she expanded the scope of her architectural education.

Seda Kurt, who worked in different departments of the university during her undergraduate education, joined the CEEE staff in February 2023 to support PR works.

DAMLA KALELİ

GÖKÇE TOMRUKÇU

RUKEN KARAKUŞ

KAAN GÜREL

SELENGA GÜRMEN

ÖZGÜR ERTUNÇ

GÖKTÜRK POYRAZOĞLU

ALTUĞ MELİK BAŞOL

GÖKÇE ERSEL ÖTKÜN

CANAN M. ÖZSOY

SEDA KURT