Prof. Dr. Özlem Duva Kaya completed her master’s degree with a thesis entitled “The Problem of the Identity of Thought and Being in Parmenides” and earned her PhD with a dissertation titled “Kant’s Philosophical Anthropology and Its Impact on Contemporary Philosophy.”

She carried out postdoctoral research as a fellow at the Kant-Forschungsstelle at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, where she also taught courses in the Department of Philosophy. As part of her International Postdoctoral Research Project, she received invitations from several prestigious institutions, including Sapienza University of Rome and the University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign, and was invited as a keynote speaker to the 14th International Kant Congress organized by the University of Bonn.

In addition, she conducted postdoctoral research at INALCO (Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales) in Paris, focusing on Ernest Gellner and modernization. Having previously held academic positions at Ege University and Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University, Özlem Duva Kaya has been a faculty member in the Department of Philosophy at Dokuz Eylül University since 2013.

Her research interests include Enlightenment philosophy, Kant, philosophical anthropology, political and moral philosophy, philosophy of law, aging and philosophy, as well as philosophy and gender studies.

Özlem Duva Kaya is a member of the Critical Masculinity Studies Initiative and serves on the editorial board of Masculinities: A Journal of Identity and Culture. She has previously served as editor of the Journal of the Faculty of Letters of Dokuz Eylül University and is currently the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Kant Studies. She is also a founding member of the Turkey Kant Society and serves on its academic board.

She has published extensively in national and international peer-reviewed journals and edited volumes on Kant and Enlightenment philosophy, ethics, political philosophy, and gender studies.