Biography

Hello! I am an art historian of the visual and material cultures of the medieval Islamic world, with a special interest in Armenian, Byzantine, and Persian-Islamic artistic exchange and cultural encounters in medieval Anatolia, the South Caucasus, and the Eastern Mediterranean. I hold a Ph.D. degree in History of Art from Koç University, Istanbul. I am a Lecturer of Medieval Mediterranean and Islamic Arts in the History of Art Department at the University of Michigan where I was previously a Research Assistant in the Digital Islamic Studies Curriculum (DISC), and a Freer Visiting Graduate Student Fellow in the History of Art at the University of Michigan as well as a Visiting Doctoral Student in History of Art at Bryn Mawr College. I am also one of the founding members of Khamseen: Islamic Art History Online where I serve as the Digital Technologies Coordinator, and an editorial assistant at the International Journal of Islamic Architecture (IJIA).

My dissertation contextualizes bronze mirrors within the lives of the inhabitants of medieval Anatolia by considering their various functions in personal adornment and their use in devotional, divinatory, and talismanic practices during the Seljuk period, that is, between the late eleventh and early fourteenth centuries. I am currently working on a book manuscript exploring Seljuk-period bronze mirrors in medieval Anatolia. My research interests also include the collection and display of Islamic art in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, history of sports, environmental studies, digital art history and visualization.