After completing his undergraduate education at Marmara University, Faculty of Theology (1986), Recep Şentürk did his master's degree from the Department of Sociology at the Faculty of Letters of Istanbul University (1988) and became an assistant in the same department (1988-1989). He completed his PhD in Sociology at Columbia University in the United States (1998). He worked as a researcher at ISAM (1998-2007). He did research on human rights as a visiting scholar at Emory University Law School in Atlanta (2002-2003). He carried out his studies on human rights at Oxford Brookes University, Faculty of Social Sciences and Law, at the invitation of the British Academy, and gave conferences on the same subject at various universities in England (2005). He served as the rector of Ibn Haldun University between March 2017 and December 2021. He is married, has four children, and has publications in English, Arabic and other languages.