I was born and raised in Izmir, Turkey. I completed my Undergraduate and Master of Science degrees at Dokuz Eylul University, Environmental Engineering. Upon completion of my master's in Izmir, I moved to Ankara (Capital of Turkey) to start my PhD at the Middle East Technical University in Petroleum and Natural Gas Engineering. As a part of my PhD, I spent time at the University of Alberta. This experience is extremely valuable to me, and Canada taught me a lot. After receiving my PhD in 2008, I moved to my next adventure (Stanford) as a postdoc for two years. In 2010, I started to work for Schlumberger in Venezuela, UK, and Colombia before joining Texas A&M University as a faculty member.

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My husband Onur is from Ordu, Turkey. He holds an undergraduate degree from Bilkent University, Physics Department and a PhD from Stanford Applied Physics. Onur pursued posdoctoral studies in Electrical Engineering at Stanford University, and Biomedical Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. We have four kids, two of them are with paws.

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In March 2016, a grey-male cat (Oglum) showed up in our backyard. We were not planing to have a pet, so provided shelter and food in our yard. He seemed to unable to move his tail, but was otherwise fine. One morning we found his tail half-eaten, and he was still chewing on it to amputate it from its base. We rushed him to the vet, and from that point on he became the boss of the household, still running around without a tail :) We had another invader in April 2016. One Saturday morning, Oglum was patrolling the neighborhood and came back home after a short stroll. When we opened the door to let him in, a female kitten (Kızım) ran into the house instead, and since then decided to live with us. Cats are weird, but they are full of fun and we learn a lot from them every day.

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In February 2018 and 2020, our daughters Hazel and Deniz joined us.  Now, we are a crowded and happy family.