Principle Researcher

Miri Besken

Miri Besken is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at Bilkent University. Prior to completing her Ph.D in Psychology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, she obtained her B.S. in Psychology from Middle East Technical University and an M.A. in Developmental Psychology from Koç University. Before coming to Bilkent University, she worked as a postdoctoral fellow at Heinrich Heine Universität in Düsseldorf, Germany. Her research interests lie in the intersection of memory, learning and metacognitive processes with a focus on healthy young adults.

Phone: +90 (312) 290 17 28
 
E-mail: mbesken@bilkent.edu.tr
 

Graduate Students

Öykü Aydın

Öykü received her B.S. in Psychology and M.A. in Cognitive Psychology from Çankaya University. During her undergraduate and Master’s education, she has worked on emotion and memory interaction. She is currently a second-year Ph.D. student in the Psychology graduate program at Bilkent University. Her main research interests focus on encoding/learning strategies. Specifically, her current project explores how photo-taking and note-taking strategies affect memory and metamemory processes, as well as underlying cognitive mechanisms. She is also working on how the cognitive offloading phenomenon applies to memory. 

E-mail: oyku.aydin@bilkent.edu.tr 

Undergraduate Students

Nilsu Sağlam

Nilsu is a fourth-year undergraduate student in the Psychology department. Her project investigates the effects of fluency in gestures on memory and metamemory.

Duygu Uraş

Duygu is a fourth-year undergraduate student in the Psychology department. She is mainly interested in the metamemory and JOL-reactivity. Her research project investigates the effect of JOL-reactivity on the memory performance of emotionally valenced words.

İpek Şahin

İpek is a fourth-year undergraduate student in the Psychology department. She is primarily interested in cognitive psychology, with a focus on memory processes and related phenomena, such as how these processes influence decision-making.

Deren Ateş

Deren is a fourth-year undergraduate student in the Psychology department. She is interested in cognitive psychology and cognition, with a focus on memory processes. Her research project investigates cognitive offloading and its effects on memory performance.

Research Assistants

Şevval Yörük

Şevval graduated from Bilkent University Psychology B.A. in 2024. Her project investigates a phenomenon known as “Illusory Truth Effect” and cognitive processes underlying this phenomenon.

Alumni

  • Meltem Karaca (Currently Postdoctoral Researcher at Boston University)
  • Belgin Ünal (Currently Ph.D. student at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign)
  • Ecem Eylül Ardıç (Currently Ph.D. student at WUSTL)
  • Ezgi Melisa Yüksel (Currently Ph.D. student at UW-Madison)
  • Fatih Yavuz (Currently Ph.D. student at METU)
  • Gizem Filiz (Currently Ph.D. student at WUSTL)
  • Samet Kaya (Currently Ph.D. student at University of North Carolina)
  • Aşkın Su Aşkınol (Currently M.Sc. student at Maastricht University)
  • Berru Benan Orhan (Currently M.A. student at KU Leuven)
  • Ceren Bal (Currently M.Sc. student at University of Amsterdam)
  • Ezgi Özgan (Currently M.A. student at Bilkent University)
  • Meryem Gökçe Yavuz (Currently M.A. student at Boğaziçi University)
  • Sencer Topcu (Currently M.Sc. student in Barcelona)
  • Nilsu Atılgan (Currently a Senior Researcher in the Readability Consortium)
  • Derya Karademir
  • Elif Cemre Solmaz
  • Elif Hilal Kurt
  • Esra Elibüyük
  • Ezgi Ersen Ceylan
  • Gamze Nur Eroğlu
  • Rengin Dalkıran