My primary interest is in understanding the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying the therapeutic effects of psychedelic drugs. During my undergraduate and post-graduation training, I gained skills in behavioral psychological methods in Koc University, Turkey. Using behavioral techniques, I studied questions related to time perception and working memory, as the lab manager for Drs. Ilke Öztekin and Fuat Balci, at Koc University. While in charge of the Timing, Decision Making and Memory Lab, I oversaw the coding, experimental, and analysis phases of twelve studies. Furthermore, I assisted and trained a total of eleven graduate and undergraduate students in the use of Matlab [Psychtoolbox], SPSS, and the execution of experiments.As a PhD student at Brown University, USA, I gained training in the use, data collection, analysis and interpretation of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), electroencephalogram (EEG), and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), as well as computational modeling. Moreover, I have had the opportunity to train with Dr. David Badre. While at Brown, I have conducted an establishing line of behavioral, neuroimaging and patient studies on cognitive effort through the examination of the neural systems underlying the cost of cognitive effort and the characterization of the impact of Parkinson’s Disease (PD) on cognitive effort decisions. Next, I started as a postdoctoral researcher at Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Netherlands with Roshan Cools. There, I worked on building a paradigm that revised a cognitive neurochemical model of cognitive effort seeking, which might also contribute to the development of clinical interventions for populations that are characterized by motivational anomalies and noradrenaline dysfunction, such as Parkinson's Disease patients. Additionally, I collaborated with a Parkinson's Disease specialist, Rick Helmich, M.D., Ph.D., on the topic of reward learning in Parkinson's Disease patients. Currently, I’m a faculty member at Johns Hopkins University, Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research, researching the effects of psilocybin on brain and cognition.Throughout my education and work, I taught courses in experimental, social psychology and cognitive neuroscience; mentored undergraduate, masters and Ph.D. students; taught courses and organized Matlab programming workshops; organized seminars on science communication and Psychedelic Science.