Ozlem received her BSc degree in Physics from Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey. Then she moved to the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics at the same University for her MSc degree. She obtained her PhD from Max-Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics and Free University, Berlin, Germany in 2003. She was co-founder and the first President of the student association of Max-Planck Institute in Berlin. While doing her PhD, Ozlem became interested in structural biology, and during her postdoctoral positions (Texas University, UWC and UP) she gained experience in structural bioinformatics as well as structural biology. In October 2009, Ozlem took up a senior lecturer position at Rhodes University, with the responsibility to develop postgraduate studies in bioinformatics at the University. She established Rhodes University Bioinformatics research group (RUBi) in 2010, and started one-year MSc programme in bioinformatics by coursework and research thesis in 2011. Since October 2013, RUBi is a research unit (Research Unit in Bioinformatics). Ozlem was the first president of the South African Society for Bioinformatics (SASBi) between 2012 and 2014. Ozlem’s broad research interest is comparative genomics and structural bioinformatics.

"Structural bioinformatics Comparative genomics"