dr. A. Günay (Aslı)

Dr. Aslı Günay is an assistant professor in the Human-Centred Design group at University of Twente.

Graduating as the top-ranking student from the Industrial Design Department at Middle East Technical University (METU), she spent part of her undergraduate education as an exchange student at Politecnico di Milano. She earned her Master’s degree from the Joint Master’s Program in Design for Interaction from Delft University of Technology. She completed her Ph.D. in the Industrial Design Department at METU, receiving the 'Thesis of the Year Award' for her work, which focused on the intersection of pregnant women’s wellbeing during three trimesters of pregnancy and personal health technologies. She conducted her postdoctoral research on systems approach to healthcare at the University of Cambridge, Engineering Design Centre. She also worked with BEKO PLC in Cambridge, UK, on improving the wellbeing of elderly.

She has taught multiple design courses at METU and Koç University where she also worked as an Assistant Professor. She received an 'Outstanding Teaching Award' from the president of Koç University in 2023. The courses she taught there were also recognised as one of the top classes among the university in which learning and teaching have manifested at the highest level, based on student evaluations (five achievements: Spring 2021, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Spring 2023). Additionally, she worked as a senior user experience researcher at METU/BILTIR UTEST Product Usability Unit for approximately ten years. She has worked in various industry-collaboration projects in various sectors, such as conversational agents, home electronics, white goods, and healthcare technologies.

For more than a decade, the investigation of how emerging technologies can come into being with meaningful experiences and use scenarios, especially in the healthcare context, has constituted one of her central research interests. She has been particularly working on the development of staged-based design methods, tools, and technologies to help explore idiosyncratic dynamics and needs in multiple stages observed in diverse health conditions, such as in the stages of pregnancy, menopause, dementia, cancer, and so on. Particularly, ‘women’s health’ has been an invaluable focus for her to investigate transitions inherent in multiple biological milestones (e.g. diverse trimesters of pregnancy, fluctuations during different stages of menopause, cyclic rhythms of menstruation).

She regularly publishes in and contributes academic service to top-tier design and HCI journals and conferences, and has received special recognition including numerous Outstanding Reviewer Awards from CHI, DIS, IMWUT, and Health Systems (7 Outstanding Reviewer Awards), in addition to best paper and honorable mention awards for publications (DIS, IADIS).

Expertises

• Computer Science

  • User Experience
  • Education
  • Interactivity
  • Social Context

• Social Sciences

  • Self-Service
  • Everyday Life
  • Student Perception
  • In-Depth Interview

Organisaties

Publicaties

Onderzoeksprofielen

In addition to the list below, I am currently involved in:

• Technology for Women's Health in a Life Span Perspective (Minor; I am the workshops coordinator of the minor, as well as being a teacher in the minor) 
• Tutoring in diverse modules (e.g., Project Designing for Specific Users, Project Human Perspective)
• Supervising BSc and MSc students, and PhDs (both within and beyond Utwente) 

Verbonden aan opleidingen

Vakken collegejaar 2026/2027

Vakken in het huidig collegejaar worden toegevoegd op het moment dat zij definitief zijn in het Osiris systeem. Daarom kan het zijn dat de lijst nog niet compleet is voor het gehele collegejaar.

Vakken collegejaar 2025/2026

Vakken collegejaar 2024/2025

RECENT PROJECTS

Narratives of Embodied Staging and Transitions (NEST): Tools for Reconciling Personal and Medical Stages in Healthcare

Many health conditions involve medical stages that offer standardised ways to describe illness progression. However, individuals experience their health conditions through nested personal, emotional, and practical episodes embedded in daily life, which medical conceptualisations of stages do not fully capture. Supporting individuals in identifying and communicating their embodied health stages can foster patient autonomy, individual-clinician communication, and more personalized and meaningful care. This project explores personal staging and the role of tangible tools in patients’ identification and communication of these stages to relevant stakeholders, through interviews, designathons, and implementation guidelines.

Caught in Transition: Investigating the Socio-Technical Space of Assisted Reproductive Technology Treatments

The project aims to explore the socio-technical space of Assistive Reproductive Technology treatments (ART treatments): treatments that are often pursued by people who have received an infertility diagnosis. ART treatments represent a unique medical journey. They are predominantly pursued by couples yet usually involve medical intervention for only one partner: the woman. This dynamic produces a complex situation, where the physical, emotional, and social burden extend beyond the person receiving treatment, and affect the couple’s relationship and the broader social environment. In this context, medical treatments often take place at home, with injections being administered by the partner of the person receiving treatment, turning the home into a medical setting and blurring the lines between personal and clinical spaces. This may also bring about emotional conflict, such as an increased bond, but also anxiety related to this shared responsibility. 

Furthermore, although the technological developments in this field are rapid, ART treatments are not a guarantee for success: many couples move through complex treatment journeys, lacking a clearly defined endpoint. This leaves the couple pursuing ART treatment in a liminal space: the waiting area between one moment in time, and the next— parenthood, or embracing a childfree future. Liminal spaces are places of uncertainty, vulnerability, and unpredictability. 

Adres

Universiteit Twente

Horst Complex (gebouwnr. 20), kamer W235
De Horst 2
7522 LW Enschede

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Organisaties