Prof. Dr. Derya Oktay Appointed Dean of the Faculty of Architecture and Design

Prof. Dr. Derya Oktay, who joined the Department of Architecture in August and has been serving as Acting Dean of the Faculty of Architecture and Design since September 25, 2025, has been officially appointed Dean of the Faculty of Architecture and Design as of October 15, 2025, by the letter dated October 15, 2025, and numbered 66583 from the Presidency of the Council of Higher Education. We congratulate our professor on her new appointment and wish her continued success in her work.

About Prof. Dr. Derya Oktay:

Prof. Dr. Derya Oktay graduated from Ankara Çankaya High School, the Department of Architecture at Gazi University (ADMMA), the Master’s Program in Architecture at Middle East Technical University, and the Urban Design Specialization Program at Oxford Brookes University. She completed her doctoral research at Oxford Brookes University in the United Kingdom as a YÖK scholarship holder and earned her Ph.D. from Yıldız Technical University.

Before assuming the position of Dean of the Faculty of Architecture and Design at Fenerbahçe University, Prof. Dr. Oktay served as a Senate member at three different institutions. She has also held positions as Founding Dean of the Faculty of Architecture, Head of the Department of Architecture, Head of the Department of Urban and Regional Planning (Uhde), and Founding Director of the Center for Urban Research and Development.

In addition to her teaching activities, she has established new undergraduate and graduate programs and conducted research supported by the European Union, USAID (United States Agency for International Development), the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK), and Eastern Mediterranean University. She is the author of numerous articles published in SSCI, SCI, SCI-Expanded, and AHCI-indexed journals, as well as internationally indexed book chapters, books, conference papers, and articles in the popular press. She has delivered lectures as an invited speaker in Turkey and in countries across different continents and has participated in international design workshops.

She has served as the elected President of the Nicosia-Cyprus Branch of the International Development Association (SID), headquartered in Rome, Italy. She is a member of the Board of Directors of the World Renewable Energy Network (WREN, UK) and serves on the Advisory Board of the “Building Beauty International Master’s Program” based in Sorrento, Italy. She has been a visiting professor/researcher at the University of California-Berkeley (USA), Politecnico di Milano (Italy), University of Michigan (USA), Oxford Brookes University (UK), and Pratt Institute-New York (USA).

She is the appointed Editor-in-Chief of Ekistics and the New Habitat and serves on the editorial boards of five prestigious international peer-reviewed journals. In addition, she has acted as a selection panel member for TÜBİTAK and other scientific institutions and national and international award programs, as well as a jury member and/or chair for architectural project competitions held in Turkey and abroad. As an architect and urban designer, she has participated in international architectural and urban design competition projects with multinational teams, receiving special awards in several of them.

In 2021, she was honored with the WREN Pioneer Award (World Renewable Energy Council Pioneer). According to research conducted by Stanford University, she has been listed among the “World’s Most Influential Scientists” for the sixth time.

Prof. Oktay served as an elected board member of the Council of Deans of Architecture Faculties (MİDEKON) for three consecutive terms (2014-2016, 2016-2018, 2018-2020) and has actively contributed to the Architecture Education Congresses organized in collaboration with universities by the TMMOB Chamber of Architects General Presidency, as well as to numerous professional and academic committees in the field of architecture.