PhD, The University of Georgia, May 2016
MA, The Savannah College of Art & Design, May 2009
BBA, The University of Georgia, May 2007

Bio

Sonya Turkman is a designer and scholar of interiors. Her teaching engages students to consider culture and its role in the development, design, and function of interior spaces. She has presented scholarship of teaching and learning outcomes at regional and international venues. Turkman’s research focuses on historic urban markets and the ways in which they are documented extending their relevance beyond their physical presence. She seeks to bring design ethnographic methods and practices into both her teaching and research.

Areas of Interest and Research

Turkman's research focuses on how extended reality platforms re-define and extend the interior in new ways. She is currently exploring the use of virtual reality as a creativity training and assessment tool for interior design students.

In this research she is developing a framework to integrate Extended Reality platforms into the studio both as a teaching methodology and as a pedagogical practice. Turkman's work considers the changing theoretical conceptions of the interior and the influence of technology in interior design.

Publications (Selected)

Turkman, S. G. (2022). Symphonies of Performance: Traces of Pandemic Pedagogy. In Jones, K. (Ed.) Doing Performative Social Science: Creativity in Doing Research and Reaching Communities. pp. 213-220. New York: NY: Routledge. DOI: 10.4324/9781003187745-22

Turkman, S. G. (2021). Data as memory: Contemporary memory practices in Extended Interiors. Interiors: Design/Architecture/Culture. DOI: 10.180/20419112.2020.184084

Presentations (Selected)

Turkman, S. G. (2023). Hamallar: Shouldering the Burden of Istanbul’s Commerce in Eminonu District . Presented the The SAH Annual Conference, April 12-16, 2023, Montreal, Canada. Peer-reviewed full paper.

Turkman, S. G. (2023). Food on the Prairie. Presented at the The IDEC Midwest Conference, September 23-24, 2023, Minneapolis, MN. Peer-reviewed abstract.

Turkman, S. G. (2022). “Post-truth and the Significance of Research and Critical Thinking in the Studio.” In reconnect recalibrate: Proceedings of the 2022 IDEC Annual Conference, (2022), Peer-reviewed abstract.