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Team & Research Direction

Dr. Firat Ilim
Founder & Research Director
PhD in Carnival Studies, Postdoc in Political Anthropology, Habilitation in Musical Aesthetics. Currently affiliated with Université Paris Cité.

ORCID: 0000-0003-1226-7098

Interview (2022): On Metaverse and Immortality
A conversation on the philosophical tensions of technological transformation—offering insights into embodiment, knowledge, and the dream of digital immortality.

Core Team

Dr. Begüm Balkan Apaydin
PhD in Optical and Biophysical Systems (Czech Academy of Sciences). With a background that bridges physics, biomedical engineering, and nanotechnology, she focuses on designing advanced biosensing platforms that connect disciplines and push boundaries. Her work spans from cleanroom nanofabrication to real-time optical analysis of cell interactions, combining hands-on engineering with a deep understanding of biological systems. Having contributed to both academic and industry-driven R&D projects across Europe, she currently conducts research at the Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences, where she explores micromachines and microfluidic systems for next-generation biomedical applications.

Kevser Erdogan, MA
PhD candidate in Philosophy of AI, working on the concept of machine dreaming. MA in Philosophy, focusing on parallels between the conceptual structure of calculus and philosophical theories of perception. Undergraduate background in mathematics, including statistics and programming. Proficient in Python and Weka. Currently affiliated with Ankara University.

Ozgur Cinar
With a background in Computer Engineering, Ozgur is a software developer and DevOps engineer who explores the intersections of systems architecture and creative computation. Also engaged in generative art practices, he occasionally describes himself as a "pseudo-artist"—experimenting with code as both tool and medium. Uninterested in rigid titles or roles, he prefers to approach work holistically, seeking connections across disciplines rather than boundaries between them.

Ethics Advisor

Prof. Dr. Solmaz Zelyut
Prof. Dr. Solmaz Zelyut is a distinguished scholar affiliated with Ege University, whose research spans ethics, political theory, law, and gender studies. She is the author of six books and numerous academic articles, contributing significantly to interdisciplinary debates in the humanities and social sciences.

Collaborators (Project-Based)

Dr. Gulru Yesilkanat Cakir
Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology (Ankara University). Her research focuses on the interplay between traumatic affect, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), psychological vulnerability, and emotional processes, with a particular emphasis on women’s experiences of intimate partner violence. She works on the development and adaptation of psychological assessment tools, as well as testing theoretical models related to trauma and emotion regulation. Having contributed to a range of academic and nationally funded research projects, she currently serves as a Research Assistant at Ankara University, where she combines empirical findings with theoretical insight to explore pathways that can enhance the psychological well-being of vulnerable populations.

Dr. Hazal Akpinar
PhD in Philosophy with a background in mathematics. Her research brings together Marxism, posthumanism, and AI within critical technology studies. She experiments with new forms of learning and collective imagination, from philosophy education to role-playing game design.

Dr. Ece Yücel
PhD in Art Sciences (Işık University). Passionate advocate of STEAM education, with a multidisciplinary background in literature, theatre, business, science, and visual arts. Her research explores artistic motivation in both humans and machines, focusing on human–machine relations and collaborative models. As a dedicated theorist and educator, she tries to be a true Jedi to mentor my Padawans.

Deniz Koşucu, MA
She is a clinical psychologist, psychotherapist, and aspiring doctoral researcher, exploring human experience across a multi-layered spectrum, from the laboratory to fieldwork. Drawn to the fault lines where science meets art, she navigates the shifting terrain of human experience with curiosity and precision. Her work engages with trauma, loss, grief, psycho-oncology, psychosocial risks, migration, and post-disaster psychosocial support, alongside explorations of interpersonal emotion regulation and humor. By writing stories and through her dialogue with philosophy and the arts, she searches for new ways of seeing and reimagining our ways of being.

İrem Koçak, MSc
Clinical Psychologist and Neuroscience Specialist with expertise in neuroaesthetics and the intersections of music, art, and cognition. She has conducted research at the MusiCognition Lab and will soon join the Cajal Institute Neuroimaging Lab. Her work explores reward, memory, and emotion in relation to art, aging and the dopaminergic system, as well as psychoanalytic approaches to symbolism. Beyond academia, she is active in science communication as host of Biz Seni Anlıyoruz and writer at Psikeart.

Kübra Arslan, MA
PhD candidate and researcher in musicology, focusing on the intersections of music, culture, and gender. She holds a Master’s degree in Music Sciences from Dokuz Eylül University, where she wrote her thesis on electronic dance music, and is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in the same field. Her work also engages with music perception and gender studies.

Ferahi Menges MA
Ferahi Menges holds degrees from the Faculty of Medicine and the Department of Visual Arts, and completed her Master’s in Art Theory and Criticism in 2014. Her project One Square Meter, developed during a year and a half spent in nature during the pandemic, documents what becomes possible when pesticides and chemical fertilizers are excluded—through the close observation of approximately twenty edible and medicinal wild herbs that emerged spontaneously within carefully selected one-square-meter plots. In her ongoing project I Listened to the Plants, she translates the silent language of wild flora into sound by capturing their bioelectrical signals, revealing how plants grown in healthy environments and those exposed to toxic stress communicate in distinct frequencies.

Hermes Quartus (v.4.0)
He works on meta-ethics and the historical interplay of mathematics and magic. Takes various forms.

Collaborators & Partnerships

Llull Lab is an open platform for interdisciplinary experimentation, bringing together diverse expertise to address challenges no single field can solve alone.

We seek partners who are ready to challenge assumptions and co-invent new trajectories for transformation. The Lab is eligible for participation in EU-funded projects and partnerships.

We collaborate through:

contact@llulllab.com