He graduated from Gazi University Kastamonu Faculty of Education, Department of Social Sciences Education (History minor field) in 1997.
He graduated from Gazi University in 2000 with a master's degree in History Education. His thesis was on the educational functions of historical stories. In 2006, he gave his doctoral dissertation "The Development of the Concept of Historical Time in Students" at the same university. He became an associate professor of history education in 2010 and a professor in 2016. He worked at Gazi, Ahi Evran, Marmara, Sakarya and Istanbul universities. The author continues to produce publications in history education, mainly in the field of historiography and methodology for the last 12 years. He is the Chief Editor of TUHED (Turkish History Educational Journal) and historiography journals. He is the co-chairman of the Historiography Workshops, which are held each year with a theme hosted by a university, and is a member of the active organizing committee of ISHE (International History Education Symposium), which is also hosted by a university every year.
He is a board member of Education Faculties Programs Accreditation Association (EPDAD) between 2016-2019. Since 2017, he has been working as a team leader, evaluator and monitor in YÖKAK monitoring-evaluation and accreditation processes. Şimşek served as Istanbul University-Cerrahpaşa Senator between 2021-2023. In addition, he still serves as a member of the Social Sciences Ethics Committee and a member of the Academic Incentive High Commission.
Books Published Under His Editorship: Historiography in Turkey (2011), How to Write History? (2011), Methodology for History (2015), Out-of-school Social Studies Teaching (2016), Turkish Historians (2016), Historiography in the World (2017), Living Turkish Historians (2017), History Education in Turkey (2017), Academic Historiography (2017) Image of Turkish in the World (2018), Issues of Turkish History and Historiography (2019), History of Modern Turkey (2019), Images in History Textbooks: States, Peoples, People (2019), Theses in Turkish Historiography Theories (2019), Agenda of Historiography in the World ( 2020), Is Interdisciplinarity Opportunity or Limitation in Historiography (2021), New Approaches in Historiography: Rethinking Old Sources (2022).
Copyrights: Cacabey and Madrasa (2006), Local History Handbook for Teachers (2015), Did It Really Happen? (2019) What Does History Do? (2022), Fetih and Fatih (with Emel Akbaş-2023).
Apart from these, the author has around one hundred articles, papers and chapters in other books. It has trained and trained many doctoral and graduate students. Currently, he is a Professor at Istanbul University - Cerrahpaşa, Hasan Ali Yücel Faculty of Education. Dr. continues to operate.