She holds a B.Sc. degree in Electrical & Electronics Engineering and a M.Sc. degree in Computer Engineering from the Middle East Technical Univesity in Turkey, where she started doing research in Robotics at the Kovan Lab, with her advisor Erol Sahin. Maya received her Ph.D. in Robotics at the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2012, after working five years at the Socially Intelligent Machines Lab with her advisor Andrea L. Thomaz. Afterwards, she spent a year as a post-doctoral research fellow at Willow Garage, Inc. working with Leila Takayama. Maya's research interests are in human-robot interaction, end-user programming, and assistive robotics. She aims to develop robots that can be programmed and controlled by a diverse group of users with unique needs and preferences to do useful tasks.