Yunus Uğur completed his BA degree at Boğaziçi University, Department of Sociology, and then received his MA and Ph.D. degrees in the History Department at the same university. He worked at New York Binghamton University in History Department as a researcher between 2003 and 2004. Then between 2009 and 2020, he was a faculty member of the History Department at Istanbul Sehir University, a director of the Center for Urban Studies and MA Progam in Urban Studies. He was in Berlin on sabbatical leave from 2016 to 2017. He is now the director of the Center for Digital Humanities and a faculty member of the History department at Marmara University. He has been a chief editor of the Turkish Studies Review (TALID) since 2003, a project leader of www.digitalottomanstudies.com, a member of the Executive Board of Global Urban History Project (GUHP), and members of the European Association of Urban History (EAUH) and Middle East Studies Association (MESA). His area of interest covers Ottoman urban history, urban spaces, and neighborhoods, historiography, historical sources, digital history, oral history, historical geography, and cultural heritage.

Uğur has written books and articles, directed research projects, and supervised theses on these research areas. In the last five years, he completed a research project, supported by TUBITAK, entitled "Typologies and an Atlas of the Ottoman Cities (1450-1700)" and four different research projects about cultural heritage and tombstones of Istanbul with the support of Istanbul Municipality. Besides, he was an advisor for three projects on the oral and visual history of Istanbul with the support of ISTKA and a member of the editorial board of Great History of Istanbul (10 volumes in TR and EN) supported by Kültür AŞ and ISAM. He is now studying new projects supported by TUBITAK entitled "Mapping the Ottoman Cities: Socio-Spatial Conjunctions and Distinctiveness (1520-1540)" and "A Spatialization of the Nineteenth-Century Istanbul Dervish Lodges: Mapping of their Positions and Networks," and by YTB entitled "The Ottoman Cultural Heritage in Lebanon". Some of the books he contributed as an author and editor are Bir Semte Vefa, Gardens of Eden in Vefa: The Vefa District's Cemeteries (2 v.), Tarih-I Raşidve Zeyli (3 v.), Osmanlı Hukukunda Fetva, The Great History of Istanbul from Ancient Times to the 21st Century (10 v.), Cumhuriyet Döneminde Ümraniye: Şehirleşme, Toplum, Ekonomi ve Yönetim, İstanbul Türbe, Hazire ve Kabirleri: Fatih, Eyüpsultan, Beyoğlu, Fatih (4 v.), Tarih Bilimi ve Metodolojisi, Environment and Urbanism in the Ottoman Empire, Kent Sosyolojisi and Osmanlı'da Şehir, Vakıf ve Sosyal Hayat.