After studying mathematics and astronomy in France as a young adult, Gökdoğan joined the faculty of Istanbul University in 1934 and completed her PhD.
She was elected Dean of the university's Faculty of Science in 1954, becoming the first Turkish woman to serve as a university dean, and she was later made Chair of the astronomy department, significantly expanding her department's capacity and working to improve national and international collaboration between astronomers.
[2] In her late teens, Gökdoğan received a scholarship to study in France; she enrolled in the University of Lyon and in 1932 she completed her undergraduate degree in mathematics.
She had a strong interest in astronomy and subsequently studied physics at the University of Paris,[1] where she received a Diplome d'Etudes Superieures.
She completed her PhD three years later, submitting a dissertation entitled Contribution aux recherches sur l'existence d'une matière obscure interstellaire homogène autour du soleil (Contribution to research on the existence of homogeneous interstellar dark matter around the sun).
[1] In 1958, she was appointed Chair of the Astronomy Department at Istanbul University, and she held the role for the rest of her time as a faculty member.
[9] During her time as a member in the IAU, she participated in two of its commissions on "theory of stellar atmospheres" and "solar radiation and structure".