Administrative Appointments 
Asst. Prof. Meltem Gürel has been appointed chair of the Department of Interior Architecture and Environmental Design to replace Prof. Halime Demirkan, who chaired the department from 1993 to 2010.
Asst. Prof. Dilek Kaya Mutlu was appointed chair of the Department of Graphic Design in March, 2010. She took over the position of chair from Prof. Bülent Özgüç, who had served as the acting chair of the department for many years. Bilkent News regrets the delay in reporting Professor Mutlu's position.
Meltem Ö. Gürel is the new chair of the Department of Interior Architecture and Environmental Design where she has taught since 1994. Previous to her full-time academic engagement, Gürel practiced architecture and interior design in Illinois and New York. She taught as an adjunct professor in the School of Architecture, University 
of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, from where she received her Ph.D. in Architecture, Master’s of Architecture, B.Sc. in Architectural Studies, and B.Sc. in Interior Design. Gürel has published in Journal of Architectural Education, The Journal of Architecture, Gender, Place and Culture, Journal of Design History, The International Journal of Art & Design Education, among others. Her research interests include cross-cultural histories of modernism with an emphasis on society, gender, and culture as they have influenced the built environment - especially in Turkey in the mid-twentieth century - as well as interior space and interior design/architecture education.
Dilek Kaya Mutlu's life at Bilkent started in 1992 as an undergraduate student of economics. In 1997, she moved to the Department of Graphic Design for her graduate studies. Focusing on film and cinema studies, she earned her M.F.A and Ph.D. degrees in 1999 and 2002 respectively. She also received an M.A. degree in Popular Culture from Brock University. In 2003, she became a faculty member at the Department of Graphic Design, Bilkent University. Dilek Kaya Mutlu has published research in international journals on a variety of topics, including the history of Turkish cinema, Turkish Yeşilçam stars and their audiences, the exhibition and censorship of American films in Turkey, and Islamic consumption patterns in Turkey. She is the author of The Midnight Express Phenomenon: The International Reception of the Film Midnight Express (The Isis Press, 2003).