Melis Örnekoğlu Selçuk

Dr. Melis Örnekoğlu-Selçuk is a postdoctoral researcher at Ghent University, Department of Industrial Systems Engineering and Product Design, design.nexus research group. She received her PhD degree in Industrial Design Engineering Technology from Ghent University with her dissertation entitled “Preparing Future Designers for Their Role in Co-design”. Her Master’s degree is from the Department of Industrial Design, Izmir Institute of Technology, with a thesis entitled “Participatory design improving quality of life in inpatient children with cancer”. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Interior Architecture and Environmental Design.

She worked as a research assistant in the Department of Industrial Design at Izmir University of Economics from 2017 to 2021. She worked for several European-funded projects, including the Erasmus+ KA2 project T-CREPE (Textile Engineering for Co-creation Paradigms in Education) and the HORIZON project Exten.(D.T.)2 (Extending Design Thinking with Emerging Digital Technologies), as well as local projects like DATUMM (Documenting and Archiving Turkish Modern Furniture). She has recently joined the Circular Living Lab Hennep+ project as a project manager.

At UGent, she has been involved in teaching activities, especially supporting the students' co-design processes. Currently, she is a visiting lecturer at Aalborg University, co-teaching a course online on facilitating participatory design processes. Her research interests include co-design, the role of the facilitator in co-design processes, design education, game-based learning, and the history of modern architecture/interiors/furniture.