Zeynep BirselConcept & Project Developer

Zeynep Birsel is concept and project developer for the Open Design Lab and Space Lab at Waag. She has fifteen years of professional experience in working with scientists, academic entrepreneurs, start-ups and mid-size companies in commercial development of early stage technologies and designing for sustainable innovation. She is also experienced in policy development for regional innovation, having worked with technoparks and incubators as well as private universities across Turkey, in collaboration with Turkish Scientific and Technological Research Council and regional development agencies. 

Zeynep studied English Literature and philology at Istanbul University and holds a masters degree in Communications from California State University. She lived and worked in Istanbul, Turkye for most of her career before moving to The Netherlands in 2017. 

Currently, Zeynep is working on her PhD research at Erasmus University, focusing on collaborations between art, science and technology, investigating how a shared social ecology for collaboration across diverse epistemic cultures can be conceptualised. In her research, she asks what we can learn from individual and collective experiences of artists, technologists and scientists when co-habiting a space for situating science and technology in societally and culturally relevant contexts. Zeynep also gives guest lectures at Erasmus University, is an active member of a number of research groups such as ITD Alliance and SEADS Collective, and is one of the co-authors of Creative Producers Manifesto published during Ars Electronica 2021.