Deniz Leblebici-Basar
Deniz Basar, Ph.D., is a professor in the Department of Art & Design at the University of New Haven, where she also serves as director of the Master of Professional Studies (MPS) in User Experience Design and the Master of Science in Information Science programs. Her work focuses on advancing interdisciplinary education that integrates design, technology, and human-centered research.
She previously served as a tenure-track Associate Professor in the Department of Industrial Design at Istanbul Technical University (ITU), School of Architecture, between 2012 and 2023. She earned her Ph.D., M.S., and B.S. degrees in Industrial Design from Istanbul Technical University. Her research specialization is design cognition, an interdisciplinary field bridging cognitive psychology and design.
Basar was a research scholar at the Cognition and Language Lab at the University at Albany, State University of New York, where she collaborated with Prof. Altarriba, her Ph.D. co-advisor. Her research has been supported by competitive grants, including a 2011 Istanbul Development Agency grant for the project “A Web-Based Consulting System to Introduce SMEs to Novice Designers,” and a 2015 internal research grant for “Word Processing in Creative Problem Solving.” In 2020, she served as a key expert in the EU IPA Project “Industrial Design Ecosystem Axis for Istanbul.”
In addition to her academic work, she has held several leadership roles, including Graduate Programs Coordinator, Vice Dean at the Faculty of Architecture, and Visual Communications Director at ITU. Alongside academia, she has maintained a professional design practice since 2001 and is the creative director of Project Thinstone, a stone products company based in Istanbul.
Her current research interests include design thinking, user experience design and psychology, cognitive modeling of the design process, and university–industry collaboration.
