Damla TURAN, PhD. was born in Ankara in 1988. After completing her high school education at Ankara Atatürk High School in 2006, she ranked 358th in Türkiye in the university exams in the same year. She completed her undergraduate education in 2011 with a high honor degree at the Department of Economics at TOBB University of Economics and Technology, which she entered with a full scholarship. She completed his master's degree at METU Social Sciences Institute, Department of Economics in 2016 with her thesis study "The Factors Affecting the Early Stage Performance of Technology Enterprises Established with Goverment Support in Türkiye". She has her PhD. degree in Gazi University, Institute of Social Sciences, Department of Economics in 2022 with her thesis study "Angel Investing as one of the Financing Methods of Innovation: The case of Türkiye". Turan has academic studies and publications on R&D, innovation and commercialization policies, innovation finance, entrepreneurship and industrial policies, which are her professional interests.

From 2012 to 2020, she worked as an expert on innovation financing, entrepreneurship supports, mentoring supports, corporate firm-entrepreneur cooperation models, technology transfer, and support of frontier R&D projects at TUBITAK Technology and Innovation Support Programs Directorate. She has been working as the Head of Department for Startups at the General Directorate of National Technology of Ministry of Industry and Technology since 2020.

Turan, married with child, speaks English and beginner level Italian.