Helin İdil Özdemir

Helin İdil Özdemir

Listen to the pronunciation of Helin İdil Özdemir.

I study disability communities and technology, using computational analysis alongside quantitative and qualitative methods.

MA candidate in Computational Social Sciences at Koç University, Istanbul. Presidential Fellow.

Emailhozdemir19@

Currently, Autumn 2026: preparing for doctoral study and continuing research on disability, technology and well-being.

Explore ResearchView CV
Helin faces the camera with a smile, her arms folded in front of her. She has short, chin-length brown hair and wears round glasses, a black blouse with sheer sleeves and ruffled detailing, and a thin gold-colored necklace with a small dark pendant. A stone wall is visible in the foreground. Trees stretch across the hills behind her beneath a sunset sky fading from blue to peach and pink near the horizon.

Selected Research

All Research Projects

Blind and low vision communities and generative AI

Computational Research · Master's thesis in progress

How do blind and low vision people describe using generative AI alongside assistive technology and human help?

My Contribution
I built the research pipeline and lead human validation.

Explore the generative AI study

Ableism and well-being among adults with disabilities

Quantitative Research · Data collection complete

A survey experiment with 542 adults with disabilities in Turkey.

My Contribution
I lead the study, including questionnaire adaptation and data collection.

Explore the ableism and well-being study

Attitudes toward patients with disabilities in primary healthcare

Qualitative Research · Ongoing

An interview study with primary healthcare professionals, part of an applied health and accessibility study.

My Contribution
I conducted the interviews.

Explore the primary healthcare study

My Story

I was born and raised in Malatya, a city in Eastern Anatolia, Turkey. I lost my mother and most of my eyesight in a traffic accident when I was 9 months old, and my father in another accident when I was 8. I grew up with a mind full of social and psychological questions.

That curiosity led me to a double major in psychology and sociology at Koç University. I am now pursuing a master's in Computational Social Sciences, where I study those same questions using large-scale data.

Three pale stone arches, separated by columns, frame a river and city rooftops. Helin sits on a stone ledge in the central opening, facing the camera with a smile. She wears dark sunglasses and a sleeveless vivid-blue outfit, with her hands resting beside her. Leafy trees rise behind her, and a large pale building with a dome and pointed towers stands across the river beneath a cloudy sky.

Apart from academia, I enjoy writing, swimming, and tasting my way through local cuisines. On a walking tour, I am the front-row nerd, listening to every story and always having another question for the guide. I learn a lot from solo traveling and from testing my limits as an independent visually impaired woman.

I have also studied abroad: a summer course in Swedish language and culture in Linköping at 19, an exchange semester in the Netherlands at 20, and a year at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. I wandered around the world while wondering about the different versions of myself. From paracycling to visiting pumpkin patches, I have enjoyed getting to know each place by trying something new.

I want to keep exploring, both in my research and beyond it. Each place I go and each question I ask changes me a little. I am curious to see what comes next.

On a sunlit grassy bank beside a pond, Helin stands on the right and a fluffy brown alpaca on the left. She faces the camera with a smile, holding its lead in one raised hand. She wears round glasses, a black jacket over a pale yellow patterned top, blue jeans and black ankle boots. Reeds and leafy trees fill the background, with part of a cream-colored alpaca visible at the right edge.