Dr. Sylvia Wing Önder has been teaching Turkish Language and Culture at Georgetown since the Fall Semester of 1998. Her Master's Degree in Folklore and Folklife is from the University of Pennsylvania (1991), and her Interdisciplinary Ph.D. in Turkish Culture is from the Ohio State University (1998). Her book, "We Have No Microbes Here: Healing Practices in a Turkish Black Sea Village," came out in 2007 as a part of the Carolina Academic Press Ethnographic Studies in Medical Anthropology Series.

Dr. Önder created Georgetown's first Intensive Beginning Turkish class (6 credits per semester), and has developed Intermediate and Advanced levels for a growing number of students.