I completed my undergraduate and graduate studies at METU (Middle East Technical University) in 1997 and 2000, respectively. Then, in 2002, I obtained my second master’s degree in Applied Linguistics from the University of Essex in the UK. In 2005, I received my PhD in English Language Teaching from METU. Throughout my postgraduate studies (1997-2005), I worked as a research assistant at METU. After completing my PhD, I worked at Başkent University Department of Foreign Language Education from 2006 to 2009. Then, I worked at Oxford University and as a British Academy postdoctoral research fellow at Essex University in the UK. In 2011, I returned to METU Department of Foreign Language Education as a faculty member. Currently, I work as a Professor of Linguistics in the Department of Foreign Language Education at METU.

My research mainly focuses on morphological processing using experimental psycholinguistic methods in native, second, and heritage languages. Additionally, I conduct studies and projects on sentence processing, multilingualism, second language acquisition, and open science. As part of an interdisciplinary research team, I investigate morphological and syntactic processing in healthy individuals as well as in individuals diagnosed with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and Schizophrenia. In the recent past, I have started conducting research with an international team of researchers from 23 countries to determine the language skills that children and adolescents need to effectively participate in the judicial process.