Ceylan Besevli

Brief biography

I am a Design Researcher and Research Fellow at the MSD group working on I-smell project that investigates digital smell training through a user-centred lens. My research has broadly revolved around user-centred design, tangible interfaces, research through design, child-computer interaction and gestural interaction.

I have a Product Design (BSc) background and an intergrated PhD in Interaction Design from Koç University KUAR Design Lab. My PhD was at the intersection of developmental psychology and interaction design; in developing tangible interfaces for young children's math development. At the end of my PhD, I developed an undergraduate elective course on Play & Innovation that explored creativity in relation to play.

Besides my thesis work, I worked on gestural interaction as an interaction modality in domestic settings, which was an Industry collaboration project funded by the National Science Fund. I was also a Design Thinking Mentor for undergraduate, and MBA students, and also Industry employees under the KU Executive Education Program. I later became the coordinator of the Design Thinking Group at KU (2020-2022). I was also a part of the Language and Cognition Lab at KU and was the lab coordinator of KUAR (2021-2022).