Dr. Senem Donatan Mohan
Storyteller
Senem is an internationally renowned storyteller, storytelling coach, and author. Holding a PhD in the natural sciences, with research cited over 300 times in international publications, she brings intellectual depth to her creative work.
She weaves together science and art to spark a sense of aliveness in audiences of all ages. Whether through interactive storytelling, lively workshops, or her books, she transforms learning into a joyful, shared adventure. Her sessions thrive on audience energy, humour, and surprise.
Known for her expressive and playful presence, Senem enjoys blending the ancient wisdom of traditional stories with contemporary, real-life experiences. In her performances, she creates a bridge between past and present, myth and modern-day reality.
Being a storyteller in my own words...
Growing up in Istanbul, one of the world’s largest and busiest cities, I spent my early childhood surrounded by towering apartment buildings and endless construction sites. My family lived on the 14th floor of a high rise, where the smell of wet cement and the dust from nearby building work often kept us indoors. With little access to nature or outdoor play spaces, imagination became my escape and storytelling became part of who I was from a very young age.
In the quiet of our bedroom, my younger sister Ekin and I transformed our bunk bed into a submarine exploring the depths of the sea. As the storyteller of our imaginary crew, I created adventures filled with mysterious sea creatures and underwater discoveries for my sister and cousins. I spent hours inventing characters, worlds, and journeys, guiding everyone through stories that made our small room feel limitless. Those childhood moments were the beginning of my connection to storytelling and to the power stories have to transport, connect, and inspire people.
When our imaginary adventures ended, music took over. We turned on the cassette player and transformed the room into a dance floor, singing along to songs until an adult eventually interrupted the fun. My parents later told me how naturally I responded to music and rhythm, always encouraging everyone around me to dance. Creativity, movement, and storytelling were deeply connected in the way I experienced the world as a child.
As I grew older and started primary school, that sense of imaginative freedom slowly began to fade. I became focused on responsibility, homework, and routine at an early age. My days followed a predictable rhythm of schoolwork, family conversations around the dinner table, and evenings spent quietly in front of the television. Although moments of play still appeared during lunch breaks and picnics in the school garden, the imaginative worlds I once created so effortlessly became less present in daily life.
Looking back now, I realise those early experiences shaped me profoundly as a storyteller. In a city dominated by concrete and construction, storytelling became a way to create space, connection, and meaning. It allowed me to imagine beyond my surroundings and understand the emotional power stories can have in people’s lives.
My motivation is to spread the magical healing capacity of storytelling as an art form
In high school, I joined the drama club, an experience that reawakened the storyteller within me. Acting on stage swept away the sense of routine and boredom I had carried since childhood, reconnecting me with imagination, creativity, and performance. Theatre quickly became my passion. Every day after the final school bell, I rushed to rehearsals, eager to step into new characters, stories, and emotional worlds. At the same time, science was my strongest subject in school, especially chemistry and biology. I was fascinated by the invisible interactions happening at a microscopic level and by the idea of making hidden worlds visible through science.
As the daughter of two engineers, I was encouraged to pursue a scientific career. When the time came to choose my future profession, I found myself divided between two paths. My heart wanted to become an actress and storyteller, someone capable of transporting people into imaginary worlds through emotion and narrative. My mind, however, urged practicality and stability, convincing me that engineering would offer more secure opportunities for the future. At the time, I believed I had found a way to satisfy both sides of myself.
I studied chemical engineering at Istanbul Technical University during the day, while spending my evenings immersed in theatre through the university drama club. For many years, art and science felt like two opposing forces guiding my life in different directions. After graduation, I continued working on artistic projects as an actress, director, and producer, while simultaneously advancing my scientific career from a bachelor’s degree to a master’s degree and eventually a PhD.
In 2011, I received a scholarship to carry out postdoctoral research at one of the Max Planck Society institutes in Germany, where I became involved in cancer research focused on developing nanocarriers for targeted drug delivery. Although I was proud of my scientific achievements, something inside me still longed for creativity, expression, and storytelling.
One evening in the laboratory, while preparing nanoparticle samples alone late at night, I felt deeply frustrated after repeating the same failed procedure several times. The laboratory felt cold, sterile, and emotionally distant. As I waited for my samples to incubate, I suddenly began singing a song I had learned during one of my theatre training sessions. Slowly, the atmosphere changed. I started dancing around the laboratory, turning that silent scientific space into something alive and joyful. Music, movement, and imagination transformed the experience completely.
That night became a turning point in my life. Walking home afterwards, I asked myself an important question: did I truly want to spend the rest of my life inside laboratory rooms, or was I longing to create and inhabit imaginative worlds as a storyteller? The answer became impossible to ignore.
Storytelling taught me to savour playing with words and creating multilevel meanings
After that life changing moment in the laboratory, I became much clearer about my future. Although my research scholarship in Germany was intended to last for one year, I completed my experiments within six months and chose to end my contract early. I stepped away from academia and decided to live from my savings while searching for a way to build a life as a performing artist and storyteller.
During this transition, I slowed down for the first time in years. The same sense of emptiness and boredom I had experienced during childhood resurfaced, leaving me questioning meaning, purpose, and direction. Then something unexpected happened: I discovered storytelling as a professional art form. What had once been my favourite childhood activity, creating imaginary worlds and sharing them with others, suddenly revealed itself as a lifelong calling. Storytelling gave me a way to combine imagination, emotion, science, creativity, and human connection into one meaningful practice.
As a storyteller, I found a powerful way to explore what often remains hidden beneath the surface. Stories allowed me to make the invisible visible, bringing emotional truths, memories, and shared experiences into the open. They became a bridge between intellect and emotion, between reflection and connection. Storytelling also showed me its extraordinary ability to heal, inspire, and transform both the storyteller and the listener.
Since 2013, storytelling has become the central focus of my work. I have combined my background in science with my artistic experience to develop a unique approach to storytelling that blends imagination, reflection, and human connection. My motivation comes from a deep belief in the healing and nourishing power of stories. I believe stories are a form of “soul food”, something that must be shared with care, presence, and authenticity in order to truly reach people.
Later in my journey, I became co founder of the Seiba International Storytelling Centre, where I had the opportunity to work with thousands of children and adults through performances, workshops, and educational programmes. As a professional storyteller, I have also trained hundreds of people across Asia and Europe to develop their own storytelling skills, helping them build confidence, communication, creativity, and self expression through narrative.
In 2017, I attended a three week personal storytelling intensive on the island of Crete, an experience that transformed my personal life as well. There, I met my Irish husband, and in 2019 I moved to Ireland, where I later established my own company. Since then, I have performed as a storyteller at festivals, schools, libraries, museums, and special events, while also facilitating workshops in cultural centres, community organisations, and corporate environments.
Alongside my live performances and workshops, I have written two children’s books in Turkish, soon to be published in English, and contributed to publications exploring subjects such as molecular biomimetics, mythology, folklore, ecology, feminist thought, and literature. Across every stage of my journey, storytelling has remained at the heart of how I understand the world. Sharing stories, listening deeply, and helping others connect through narrative continues to be one of the greatest joys of my life as a storyteller.
