In 1982, she received a master's degree in Islamic art and architecture from Harvard University, where she obtained her Ph.D. in 1986 with a dissertation titled, The Formation of an Ottoman Imperial Tradition: The Topkapı Palace in the 15th and 16th Centuries, under the supervision of Oleg Grabar.

[5] Aptullah Kuran’s book jacket endorsement judges this study as “One of the principal works about Ottoman architectural history.” The author’s novel analytical synthesis is praised in Howard Crane’s 1996 review: “It is the great strength of Professor Necipoğlu’s book that she elaborates in a lucid and precise manner this connection between architectural form and function, a physical arrangement and symbolism.

Architecture, Ceremonial, and Power is a model of both exacting scholarship and thoughtful interpretation, and serves to bring to life that monument which is surely one of the keys to the understanding of the Ottoman concept of imperial absolutism.”[6] The extensive corpus of primary sources introduced in the book reveal the dialogues and parallelisms between Byzantine, Italianate, Islamicate-Ottoman architectural cultures and practices.

It features the facsimile of a unique 30-meter design scroll, with two- and three-dimensional geometric patterns and calligraphy for architectural ornament, which she attributes to late fifteenth-century Timurid-Turkmen Iran, particularly Tabriz.

Her book demonstrates the crucial role of mathematical sciences in the theory and practice of architecture and the ornamental geometric mode known as girih.

She investigates in depth the intellectual and cultural contexts of the scroll, exploring multiple meanings and perceptions of geometrical designs in line with philosophical and aesthetic theories current in the medieval Islamic world.

It is a masterpiece that establishes our understanding of why geometry became so important in Islamic art.” According to Priscilla Soucek, the book “goes far beyond the explication of a set of architectural drawings.

[18] Since its publication, the book became a significant source for historians of art, architecture, and history of science as well as mathematicians, physicists, artists, and architects.

[20] Its expanded Turkish translation, Sinan Çağı: Osmanlı İmparatorluğu'nda Mimari Kültür (Bilgi, 2013, reprint 2017) received the Necip Fazıl Book Award in the field of Best Original Research (2014).

[21] The book attracted world-wide acclaim for its innovative interpretation of works by the renowned chief architect Sinan (d. 1588), from the perspective of his “codification of decorum” in canonical Ottoman architecture according to the “relative status of patrons and building sites.”[22] Previous scholarship on Sinan’s oeuvre was dominated by the chronological development of his style, as Howard Crane notes, “It is the great strength of Necipoğlu’s work that she transcends this formalist paradigm and, by means of a truly groundbreaking examination of the rich but hitherto unexplored corpus of surviving documentary sources – archival records, vakfiyes, contemporary historical, diplomatic, and travel accounts – establishes the historical context for the chief architect’s work.”[23] The approach in this book is considered a break from established paradigms.

Her edited books on diverse subjects include, Histories of Ornament: From Global to Local (Princeton, 2016) co-edited with Alina Payne.

The volumes are organized according to a new chronological-geographical paradigm that challenges existing scholarship and notably remaps the field by providing a historical-critical approach.

"[32] Most recently, Necipoğlu co-edited with two major historians Cemal Kafadar and Cornell Fleischer, Treasures of Knowledge: An Inventory of the Ottoman Palace Library, 1502/3- 1503/4 (Brill, 2019).

1, over 1,000 pages, analyze books written in Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and “Mongolian,” on specific fields of knowledge, according to which the inventory was organized, spanning from rational theology, Islamic jurisprudence, Sufism, ethics, and politics, to literature and the mathematical sciences.