Gülsu Şimşek Franci received her Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from Istanbul Technical University in 2011. She worked in a postdoc project focused on the characterization of Böttger stoneware supervised by the Art Institute of Chicago and Northwestern University between 2011-2012. Afterward, she worked in a second postdoc project about the characterization of Qalhat ceramics in the laboratory of MONARIS (formerly LADIR, University of Paris VI). Before joining KUYTAM in June 2016, she worked in the Central and Regional Laboratory of Restoration and Conservation in Istanbul. Her field of expertise covers the characterization of cultural heritage materials, such as gilded silver wires embroidered in textiles, “Iznik“ tiles, Meissen proto-porcelain, red stonewares, Chinese ceramics, glass beads, and pigments of oil paintings (e.g., Osman Hamdi Bey, Abdülmecid Efendi) with SEM-EDS, WD-XRF, pXRF, Raman spectroscopy, FTIR and Laser Ablation ICP-MS.