Özlem was born in Mersin, Turkey. In October 2014, she received her PhD degree in physical chemistry from Gazi University, Turkey. Her research background lies in the fabrication of conducting polymer-inorganic hybrid nanocomposites, core/shell nanoparticles, surface functionalization, electro-responsive dispersions, electrorheological fluids, and self-assembly of peptide amphiphiles.  She worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the National Nanotechnology Research Center of Turkey at Bilkent University for two years. Her research focused on the design, synthesis and characterization of biocompatible electroactive peptide amphiphiles and conductive bioactive peptide amphiphile/carbon nanotube (CNT) composite gels and their possible application in neural tissue engineering. She joined the Faul Research Group in May 2017 as a postdoctoral research fellow. Her work will focus on self-assembled supramolecular conducting systems and exploration of their application in energy storage devices. Outside of the lab, she enjoys biking, trekking and travelling.