Deniz received her BS, MS and PhD degrees from the Department of Chemical Engineering, Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey. During her PhD studies, she investigated the relationships between various diseases by looking into the relationships between the proteins associated with these diseases via an interaction network approach. After completing her PhD, she started working as a post-doctoral research associate at Rensselaer Nanotechnology Center, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, in 2010. Since then, her research interests have revolved around magnetic nanoparticles, polymer nanocomposites, supercritical carbon dioxide assisted processing of polymer nanocomposites to produce nanoporous structures. She has over 20 publications in refereed journals and conference proceedings and numerous conference presentations. She is also the co-author of a laboratory textbook “Colloid and Surface Chemistry – Exploration of the Nano World”.

She has over 7 years of management and strategic planning expertise in overseeing operations in interdisciplinary multiuser facilities; coordinating and preparing financial and supplementary reports; interfacing with faculty to students, administrative staff to procurement operations, vendors to technical service.

In her prior appointments, she gained extensive experience on materials characterization on scanning electron and atomic force microscopy imaging; spectroscopy techniques; mechanical and thermal testing of materials; sample preparation for a wide spectrum of materials ranging from metals, glass, ceramic, polymers, biomaterials and composites.