Prof. Dr. Gülsün Sağlamer - Member

Gülsün Sağlamer was born in the city of Trabzon in 1945. After completing primary, middle, and secondary school in Trabzon, in 1962 she entered Istanbul Technical University and, in 1967, received her Master’s degree in architectural engineering there. She also earned her doctorate from Istanbul Technical University in 1973 and became first an associate professor there in 1978 followed by a full professor in 1988. At that time, Gülsün Sağlamer was a faculty member in the department of building technology in the architecture faculty; from 1992 to 1995, she served as the Assistant Rector of the ITU before serving two terms as the Rector, from 1996 to 2000 and 2000-2004.

Areas in which she has contributed important research include: Computer-assisted architectural design, logical design modeling, parametric design-process simulation, housing problems, illegal dwellings, and the morphological analysis of housing.  Gülsün Sağlamer has published numerous scientific articles in national and international periodicals and is a member of many international professional organizations such as CIB, IAPS, ENHR, EIAE, EAAE, ATAS. She served as a member of the board of directors for TÜBİTAK, İNTAG from 1990-1994, and was the president of the TÜBİTAK Housing Research Unit at ITU from 1998 to 2002. At that time, she was also the Director of the Future Engineering Technologies Housing Research and Education Center.

Gülsün Sağlamer worked as a researcher at the Martin Centre at Cambridge University from 1975-1976, and returned with the support of the British Council in both 1987 and 1991 for short research periods.

Furthermore, Gülsün Sağlamer ran and coordinated an international project under the umbrella of the European Union’s MedCampus program at Newcastle University, Queens' University of Belfast, Technion Israel and University College Dublin from 1994-1995.  From 1993 to 1995 she was a Visiting Professor at Queens University of Belfast in Ireland. From 1999 to 2003 she was invited to be an External Examiner at the same university, and, as Rector of ITU, presented at numerous international meetings and conferences at which she represented not only the university but Turkey as well.

Acting as a jury member in multiple engineering and architecture competitions, she herself won the Aydın Kuşadası Hotel Application Architectural competition as well as both the 1999 Collection Architectural Competition and 2000 OECD Second Educational Structure Competition for her latest design completed with Architect Meltem Aksoy for the ITU Dr. Sedat Üründül Preschool.

She has also served on the organizing committees of a number of symposiums, such as the ITU and ENHR (European Network for Housing Research) Housing for the Urban Poor Symposium (1991), the ITU and Carnegie-Mellon University-sponsored International Symposium on Descriptive Models of Design (Organization Committee Co-President, 1996), the ITU and IGIP Cooperative Engineering Education in The Third Millennium Symposium (held at ITU in 1999), and the ITU-IAHS International Conference on the Kocaeli Earthquake (Organization Committee Co-President, 1999). Professor Sağlamer has also served on quite a number of international scientific organization meeting committees as well as being an invited speaker at international meetings of various international scientific committees.

In addition to advising 10 Doctorate and 25 Masters’ theses, Gülsün Sağlamer completed 10 research projects and wrote the first book in Turkish on computer-assisted architectural design. She has also published 17 articles in English and 4 in Turkish in periodicals with international juries, more than 20 articles in Turkish-language publications, and more than 70 in English in a wide selection of books.

In the light of issues of globalization and higher education, during her tenure as the rector of Istanbul Technical University, Professor Sağlamer organized numerous conferences on raising university standards to the international level and international accreditation beginning in 1996. She hosted meetings with international accreditation bodies such as ATAS, ATC, CESAER, TIME, RMEI, EAIE, CUM, IGIP, OECD/IMHE, IAU, IAUP, and EUA. She also edited 3 international scientific books on subjects related to her field. At that time, she was a founding member of the International Journal for Housing Science and Its Applications, as well as Open House International magazine. On top of her duties as a jury member for multiple national and international juries, Gülsün Sağlamer was a jury member for UNESCO’s Mondialogo Engineering Award in 2005.

In the year 2000, Professor Sağlamer was awarded an honorary doctorate by Ottowa Carleton University and, in 2002, by Bala Mare University in Romania. Since 2002, she has been a member of the board of directors for the International Association of University Presidents, and, since 2004, has been the assistant president for the Central Mediterranean University Association.

Upon completion of her second term as rector at ITU, on 31 March 2005, Professor Sağlamer was chosen to be a member of the board of directors for the European Universities Association for a four-year term. Of the 8 rotating members of the EUA, Gülsün Sağlamer is the first Turkish member.

In 2006, Gülsün Sağlamer was made an honorary member of the American Institute of Architects and was awarded the Leonardo Da Vinci Golden Medal for her efforts in the area of engineering education by SEFI, one of the founding organizations of the European Engineering Education Association.