Biography:

  • 1968. Born in Ankara (birth log at Bayindir, Izmir).
  • 1974. Started primary school after two years of kindergarten at Zubeyde Hanim Anaokulu.
  • 1975. Moved to Brussels and continued attending primary school at Brussels American School (BAS).
  • 1977. Returned from Belgium and enrolled in Turk Egitim Dernegi (TED) Ankara Koleji.
  • 1979. Finished primary school at TED Ankara Koleji.
  • 1981. Moved to Izmir and transferred to Bornova Anadolu Lisesi (BAL).
  • 1982. Finished secondary school at BAL.
  • 1985. Finished high school (specializing in mathematics) at BAL.
    Entered the Computer Engineering Department at Middle East Technical University (METU),
    moved to Ankara and became a Sabanci Foundation (VAKSA) scholar.
  • 1989. Received BS in Computer Engineering from METU with high honors.
    Offered graduate assistantship by the Computer Science Department
    at North Carolina State University (NCSU), moved to Raleigh, NC
    as a Turkish Educational Foundation (TEV) scholar.
  • 1991. Received MS in Computer Science from NCSU.
  • 1994. Received PhD in Computer Science from NCSU, served the Turkish Armed Forces.
  • 1995. Returned from the states, started working as an Assistant Professor in the
    Department of Computer Engineering at Bilkent University, Ankara.
  • 1998. Became Associate Professor of the Interuniversity Council (UAK).
  • 2001. Became Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Engineering at Bilkent.
  • 2002. Received Alexander von Humboldt (AvH
    • ) Foundation's research fellowship to join the
    Department of Computer Science at Dresden University of Technology during sabbatical leave.
  • 2005. Received 10 year service plaque from Bilkent.
  • 2006. Received the TUBA-GEBIP Young Scientist Award from Turkish Academy of Sciences.
  • 2007. Became Professor in the Department of Computer Engineering at Bilkent.
  • 2008. Received the Young Scientist Award of Turkey (TUBITAK), became IEEE senior member.
  • 2009. Became ACM senior member.
  • 2010. Visited the Department of Computer Science (FI) at Saarland University (UDS) on a grant
    from the Cluster of Excellence on Multimodal Computing and Interaction (MMCI) during
    sabbatical leave.
  • 2011. Became Associate Dean of Faculty of Engineering at Bilkent responsible from student affairs.
  • 2012. Book published by Springer.