41.0082° N, 28.9784° E
37.4275° N, 122.1697° W
About Me
Hello!
My name is Defne.
I'm graduating from Stanford University originally from Istanbul, Turkey, and becoming a full-time product manager. I specialise in human-computer interaction and have worked on designing Large Language Models for behaviour change in at James Landay's lab at Stanford. My work touches many fields, but I am generally driven to understand how we can design for evolving technological and human needs.
My personal interests include making pour over coffee, international politics, and cooking. I speak English, Turkish, French, and am learning Arabic and Spanish. I hope to speak 6 languages by the time I'm 30!
Experience
Education
M.S. Computer Science, Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)
2023 - 2025
Stanford University
GPA: 3.8/4.0
B.S. Symbolic Systems
2020 - 2024
Stanford University
Professional Experience
Stanford HCI Group
Sep 2024 - Present
Graduate Researcher, GPTCoach
- Core researcher on an LLM agent for promoting healthy physical activity
- Developed frontend features in React Native (TypeScript)
- Built a Streamlit dashboard with Firestore integration
Coinbase
June - September 2024
Associate Product Manager Intern
- Led development of a charting tool and notifications engine
- Wrote PRDs for three core features
- Integrated user feedback into product roadmap
Stanford University Computer Science Department
Sep 2024 - Present
Course Assistant
- CS 347: Human-Computer Interaction Foundations & Frontiers
- CS 147: Intro to HCI
- CS 278: Social Computing
BrewBird
June 2023 - June 2024
Product Strategy Intern
- Designed and built the landing page for a Sequoia-backed startup
- Implemented a self-service Stripe-integrated purchasing platform
- Migrated error data to BigQuery for machine learning analysis
Skills
Product ManagementAI SafetyPrompt EngineeringReact NativePythonTypeScriptSQLStreamlitSupabaseA/B TestingLLM UXFirebaseFigmaMachine LearningDesign ThinkingUI/UX