I am an Associate Professor in the Department of Food Engineering at the Faculty of Agriculture, Selçuk University, Türkiye. I completed my MSc and PhD in Food Engineering at Selçuk University. My doctoral research focused on the microbial composition and dynamics of cheeses during ripening, with particular emphasis on lactic acid bacteria. My research interests include lactic acid bacteria, probiotics and next-generation probiotics, fermented foods, and food-associated microbiota. I have extensive experience with both culture-dependent and culture-independent approaches, including next-generation sequencing (metagenomics) for characterizing microbial communities in traditional and industrial fermented foods. My work also covers probiotic characterization, bacteriocin production, food safety, and the development of functional foods. I have participated in several nationally funded projects supported by TÜBİTAK and Selçuk University as a principal investigator or researcher. I am a member of the Turkish Microbiology Society and the Ankara Microbiology Association, have served as a reviewer for numerous international journals, and currently serve as a Section Editor at the Selcuk Journal of Agriculture and Food Sciences.