معرفی
Murat Okatan is an Associate Professor at Istanbul Technical University's Informatics Institute, Department of Computational Science and Engineering. He previously held academic positions at Cumhuriyet University in Electrical and Energy, Biomedical Engineering, and Mechatronics Engineering departments, and served in administrative roles including Department Chair, Head of Discipline, and Vice Dean. He received his PhD from Boston University and completed postdoctoral research at Ankara University and Boston University.
- PhD, Boston University
- MS, Syracuse University
- BS, Boğaziçi University (Dual Degree: Physics and Electrical-Electronics Engineering)
His research lies at the intersection of computational neuroscience, neural signal processing, and biomedical engineering. He specializes in extracellular neural recordings, spike detection, brain-machine interfaces, and statistical modeling of neural data. His work includes developing automated thresholding techniques such as truncation thresholds for spike detection, analyzing subthreshold motor cortical activity, and modeling hippocampal place cells using Zernike polynomials. His recent publications focus on statistical significance testing in receptive field estimation and improving signal-to-noise ratio in neural recordings.
His recent publications reveal a strong focus on statistical methods in neural data analysis, particularly in spike detection and receptive field modeling. He has developed and refined truncation threshold methods for more accurate action potential identification. His work bridges theoretical statistics with practical applications in brain-computer interfaces and neural decoding. He has also contributed to open-source tools, including Python code for parameter estimation in truncated distributions.
- YÖK Akademik Teşvik Ödeneği (2016, 2017)
- 2232 Postdoctoral Return Fellowship, TÜBİTAK (2011)
- Best Oral Presentation Award, 6th National Neuroscience Congress (2007)
- Best Oral Presentation Second Prize, 8th National Neuroscience Congress (2009)
- Presidential University Graduate Fellowship, Boston University (1997)
- High Honor Degree, Boğaziçi University (1995)
Murat Okatan has supervised research projects funded by TÜBİTAK, the Turkish Higher Education Council, and international agencies including NIH, NSF, and ONR. He has served as a project executive and researcher in multiple scientific initiatives, including the Neuroscience and Neurotechnology Excellence Center (NÖROM). He has also acted as a guest editor for the Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences. His lab focuses on developing computational tools for neural data analysis, with applications in brain-machine interfaces and neuroprosthetics.
He is a member of several professional societies, including IEEE, IEEE Signal Processing Society, Society for Neuroscience (SFN), Brain Research Society (BAD), and Turkish Biophysics Society. His research group develops algorithms for real-time neural signal processing and contributes to national and international collaborative efforts in computational neuroscience.
