Derya completed her Bachelor of Science majoring in Biomedical Science in 2018. In 2020, she undertook an Honours year where she investigated changes in the phenotype of natural killer cells in the blood of patients with ALS.

Derya is currently undertaking the final year of her PhD candidature under the supervision of Dr Claire Shepherd, Professor Glenda Halliday and Associate Professor Vladimir Sytnyk. Her research focuses on investigating regional changes in the cellular components of the cerebrovasculature/glymphatic system in human brain tissue affected by Lewy body disease.

In 2021, Derya was awarded the Michael and Elizabeth Gilbert Scholarship for Parkinson’s disease Research at NeuRA. In 2022, she was awarded the Helen and Emanuel Poteris Award for Alzheimer’s/Dementia/Parkinson’s Research.