She received her Ph.D. from School of Political and Social Sciences at Gazi University in Ankara, Turkey in 2010 [Dissertation Title: “Religious Literature and the Transformation of Religious Identity in Turkey: A Study of Pious Women Writers”] and her Master degree from Public Administration Institute for Turkey and the Middle East (TODAIE, Ankara, Turkey) in 1999 [Title of M.P.A. Thesis: “The Educational Problems of Turks Living Abroad and Proposed Solutions”]. She graduated from Department of Turkish Language and Literature, Ondokuz Mayıs University (Samsun, Turkey) in 1990.

She taught Literatures of Muslim Societies, Introduction to the Middle East as well as Advanced Turkish and Azerbaijani at University of Wisconsin –Madison between 2008-2017. She served as the director of Turkish Language Program of Arabic, Persian and Turkish Language Immersion Institute (APTLII) at University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2011 and 2010. She worked as the adviser of a member of Parliament in the Turkish Grand National Assembly in 2006–2007. She, also, worked as a specialist on the Commission of Curriculum Preparation at the Ministry of Education (Ankara). She has been a member of International Expert Council of Nur Otan Party (Astana) since 2017.

Funda’s main interest are literary criticism, religious identity and nationalism. She works on her book project on Religious Identity in Turkish Literature.