Prof. Dr. Burcu Aslantaş Ateş is a Professor at the Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences , Süleyman Demirel University , specializing in Banking and Finance . Her academic career spans over 15 years, focusing on Accounting and Wellbeing in economic contexts. Education: Licentiate in Business Administration (Anadolu University, 2000), Master's in Business Administration (Eskişehir Osmangazi University, 2003), Doctorate in Business Administration (Süleyman Demirel University, 2011) Her research explores intersections of financial technologies , behavioral accounting , and sustainability , particularly through the lens of UN Sustainable Development Goals. She has contributed to studies on cryptocurrency markets , healthcare cost analysis , and corporate social responsibility . Recent publications highlight trends in digital transformation (2020-2022), behavioral finance (2022), and wellbeing in higher education (2023). She actively participates in the TÜBİTAK 1001 project (2021-present) on digital transformation simulations. Notable collaborations include works with Elif Bengü (sustainability education), Mehmet Çelik (NLP in accounting), and Aygen Oksay (digital transformation projects). Her teaching includes courses on Sustainable Development Goal 3: Wellbeing .
Levent Arslan is a full-time Professor at Boğaziçi University, focusing on speech processing, machine learning, and artificial intelligence. His research interests include speaker recognition, voice conversion, robust speech recognition, and natural language processing. He has contributed extensively to the development of systems for spoken language identification, automated training, and customer experience analytics. His work bridges technical innovations with business applications, such as analyzing corporate strategies in industries like steel manufacturing. Research Highlights: Speaker verification, deep learning for intent detection, cross-cultural business ethics, and automated error correction in NLP. Key Contributions: Over 50 publications since 2001, spanning speech enhancement, voice conversion systems, and educational technology. His recent studies emphasize leveraging transformer models for domain adaptation and addressing data imbalance in NLP tasks. Arslan’s analytical frameworks are applied in call center operations, fraud detection, and enterprise success metrics analysis. While no explicit awards or grants are cited, his work reflects a strong focus on practical solutions for real-world challenges.
Prof. Esin Ergen Pehlevan is a Professor in the Civil Engineering Department at Istanbul Technical University (ITU), specializing in Construction Management and Project Management. She holds a PhD from Carnegie Mellon University. Her research focuses on Building Information Modeling (BIM), IoT integration in emergency response systems, facility management, and sustainable construction practices. She has led projects like 'User-Centric BIM Integration for Office Building Performance Evaluation' and 'Fire Emergency Response System Design using BIM and IoT.' Education: PhD in Civil and Environmental Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University (2001-2005) Master’s in Building Management, ITU (1997-2001) Bachelor’s in Civil Engineering, ITU (1993-1997) Research Interests: BIM adoption and implementation in construction projects IoT and sensor-based technologies for emergency management Facility management systems integration Occupant feedback systems for building performance evaluation Sustainability in construction and green building practices Recent Projects: Developing BIM-based emergency response systems for fire safety Automated progress monitoring using sensor data Evaluation of Common Data Environments (CDEs) in metro projects Awards: 2017 Emerald Literati Network Awards for Excellence (Highly Commended Paper) 2016 Emerald Literati Network Awards for Excellence 2006 CETI Outstanding Mind Honorable Mention Grants & Funding: Projects funded by TUBITAK and EU frameworks Research on BIM adoption supported by ITU grants Labs/Teams: Leads the BIM and Smart Construction Research Group at ITU, collaborating with Metropolitan Municipality Fire Department and international partners.
Dr. Alptekin Temizel is a Full Professor at the Graduate School of Informatics, Middle East Technical University (METU), Ankara, Turkey. He leads the METU Deep Learning and Computer Vision Lab (DLCV) and the GPU Research and Education Center. His research focuses on computer vision, deep learning, GPU computing, and medical image analysis. He holds a B.Sc. in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from METU (1999) and a Ph.D. in Computer Vision from the University of Surrey, UK (2006). Affiliations: Executive Board Member, Neuroscience and Neurotechnology Center of Excellence Executive Board Member, METU Center for Image Analysis (OGAM) DLI Certified Instructor and DLI University Ambassador (NVIDIA) Education: B.Sc.: Electrical and Electronic Engineering, METU, Turkey (1999) Ph.D.: Center for Vision, Speech and Signal Processing (CVSSP), University of Surrey, UK (2006) Research Interests: Deep Learning & Computer Vision Applications Medical Image Analysis & Healthcare AI Adversarial Machine Learning & Model Security GPU Parallel Computing & System Optimization Federated Learning in Medical Imaging Recent Achievements: 3rd place in Federated Brain Tumor Segmentation (FeTS) Challenge at MICCAI 2021 Developed SAHI package (2M+ downloads) LIMUC dataset for Ulcerative Colitis endoscopy Teaching: MMI 727: Deep Learning: Methods & Applications MMI 713: Applied Parallel Programming on GPU DI 725: Transformers and Attention-Based Deep Networks MMI 712: Machine Learning Systems Design & Deployment
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ahmet Sayar is an Associate Professor at the Department of Computer Engineering, Faculty of Engineering at Kocaeli University, Turkey. He holds an M.Sc. (2001) and Ph.D. (2009) in Computer Science from Syracuse and Indiana Universities, USA. His research focuses on Distributed Systems, Big Data, Data-Intensive Computing, Geographic Information Systems (GIS), and Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA). He has co-authored over 150 papers, 15 book chapters, and 1 book. Currently, he serves as Head of Student Affairs at Kocaeli University and as an associate editor for multiple journals. Education: M.Sc. in Computer Science, Syracuse University (2001) Ph.D. in Computer Science, Indiana University (2009) Research Interests: Parallel and Distributed Algorithms Big Data Analytics & Cloud Computing Machine Learning Applications (e.g., Image Processing, NLP) GIS and Remote Sensing Blockchain Technology for IoT and Logistics Recent Trends in Articles: His recent work emphasizes real-time data processing (e.g., video stream analytics), blockchain for supply chains, and AI-driven solutions for healthcare, transportation, and urban management. He explores ethical aspects of web scraping and low-code platforms for process automation. Advising & Grants: Advised 18 master’s/phd theses. Involved in TÜBİTAK projects and KOSGEB innovation programs. Member of editorial boards and national advisory committees. Labs/Teams: Leads university-level student affairs initiatives and collaborates on interdisciplinary projects involving distributed systems and big data frameworks.
Ahmet Cüneyd Tantuğ is an Associate Professor in the Department of Artificial Intelligence and Data Engineering at the Faculty of Computer and Informatics, Istanbul Technical University (ITU). He has been a core faculty member since 2007 and is among the founders of the ITU Natural Language Processing Group. He has held key administrative roles, including Vice Dean (2011–2015) and Head of IT Department at ITU (2012–2020). BSc, MSc, PhD: Istanbul Technical University, Computer Engineering Guest Researcher: University of Copenhagen, Centre for Language Technology (2006–2007) Dr. Tantuğ’s research spans artificial intelligence, natural language processing, machine learning, and deep learning, with a focus on Turkish and other agglutinative languages. His work includes named entity recognition, dependency parsing, machine translation, word sense disambiguation, and text normalization. He has developed linguistic resources for Turkish and low-resource languages such as Amharic, and has contributed to financial AI and temporal expression extraction. His recent publications highlight advancements in Turkish NLP, including optimal vocabulary sizing, tokenization granularity for LLMs, and transformer-based models for named entity recognition. He has led multiple research projects funded by TÜBİTAK, the European Union, and the Ministry of Development. Scientific awards include: Bedri Karafakioğlu Special Award (2000) Siemens Excellence Award (2007) TeknoGirişim Sermaye Desteği Ödülü (2010) He has supervised numerous master’s and PhD students, with theses on topics such as dependency parsing, named entity recognition, and text normalization. He has also served as a consultant for private sector projects in banking, software, and telecommunications, and as a referee for TÜBİTAK, TEYDEB, and the Ministry of Industry and Technology. Dr. Tantuğ leads and participates in active research projects including Turkish text normalization from user-generated content and improving dependency parsing with augmented features. He is a founding member of the ITU Natural Language Processing Group, which continues to be a central hub for NLP research in Turkey.
Deniz Zeyrek Bozsahin is a Professor in the Cognitive Science Department at Middle East Technical University's Graduate School of Informatics. She has held significant leadership roles including Director of the Graduate School of Informatics (2016-2022) and Head of the Cognitive Science Department (2003-2012). Her educational background includes a PhD in Linguistics from Hacettepe University (1990), an MA in Linguistics from the University of Kansas (1982), and a BA in Linguistics from Hacettepe University (1979). Professor Zeyrek Bozsahin's research focuses on discourse structure, discourse relations, linguistic annotation, language acquisition, pragmatics, and language resource development . Her work particularly emphasizes Turkish discourse structures and cross-linguistic discourse relations through major projects like the Turkish Discourse Bank and TED Multilingual Discourse Bank. Her recent publications (2020-2025) demonstrate continued scholarly activity in discourse analysis, Turkish linguistics, and computational approaches to discourse. These works primarily explore discourse relations in multilingual contexts, Turkish discourse connectives, and discourse annotation methodologies, with strong connections to natural language processing applications. She has served as editor for DILBILIM ARASTIRMALARI since 2010 and is active in international linguistic organizations including SIGANN (ACL Special Interest Group for Annotation) and CIPL (Permanent International Committee of Linguists). With over 50 graduate students supervised throughout her career, Professor Zeyrek Bozsahin has made substantial contributions to linguistics education in Turkey. Her work bridges theoretical linguistics with practical applications in computational linguistics and language resource development.
Prof. Ahmet Cosar is a faculty member in the Department of Computer Engineering at the Middle East Technical University (METU), Ankara, Turkey. He holds a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Minnesota (1996), an MS in Computer Engineering from Bilkent University (1988), and a BS in Computer Engineering from METU (1986). His research focuses on distributed database design, query optimization, evolutionary algorithms, computer networks, and cloud computing. He leads the Intelligent Data Analysis Group (IDAG) and teaches courses such as CENG 240, CMPE 275, and CENG 280. Education: PhD, Computer Science, University of Minnesota, 1996 MS, Computer Engineering, Bilkent University, 1988 BS, Computer Engineering, METU, 1986 Research Interests: Query optimization in distributed databases Evolutionary algorithms (e.g., genetic algorithms, particle swarm optimization) Cloud computing and data warehouse design Machine learning applications in cybersecurity Wireless sensor networks and data fusion Publications: Over 50 peer-reviewed articles in journals like Computers & Industrial Engineering and Neurocomputing , focusing on optimization algorithms, cloud resource allocation, and machine learning techniques. Recent work includes island-parallel metaheuristics for graph coloring and reinforcement learning for adaptive interventions. Advising & Grants: Supervised over 30 graduate students (PhD and MS) in areas like evolutionary algorithms, cloud databases, and sensor networks. Active in research grants related to distributed systems and big data. Labs/Teams: Leads the Intelligent Data Analysis Group (IDAG), collaborating on projects in optimization, machine learning, and cloud computing.
Şaziye Betül Özateş is an Assistant Professor at Boğaziçi University's Institute for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence, specializing in NLP and machine learning. She develops resources and models for Turkish and low-resource languages, including the BOUN Treebank and dependency parsers. Research focuses on dependency parsing for agglutinative languages, computational linguistics, and deep learning applications, with emphasis on Turkish morphology, code-switching parsing, and historical language processing. Recent projects address Ottoman Turkish NLP and calligraphy analysis. Publications demonstrate strong focus on Turkish language resources (40%), parsing algorithms (30%), historical text processing (20%), and code-switching NLP (10%). Recent works show increasing attention to Ottoman Turkish and Arabic script processing, with methods leveraging multilingual BERT and semi-supervised learning. Developed key resources: BOUN Treebank (Turkish syntactic corpus), PUD Treebank (multilingual parallel corpus), BOUN-Pars (LSTM-based Turkish parser), and semi-supervised parsers for code-switched languages. Supervises projects on neural network applications in NLP.
Dr. Mehmet Kayakuş is an Associate Professor at Akdeniz University's Department of Business Information within the Manavgat Faculty of Social and Human Sciences. He holds a PhD in Computer Engineering and has held academic positions since 2010, progressing from Lecturer to Assistant Professor (2018) and Associate Professor (2023). His expertise spans artificial intelligence, machine learning, and data mining applications in communication sciences, finance, and econometrics. He teaches courses in programming (Python, Java, C#), algorithms, and software engineering. Dr. Kayakuş leads 11 national/international research projects and has over 80 publications, including 30+ in SCI journals. His research focuses on AI-driven analyses of corporate reputation, sustainability, and financial metrics. Notable contributions include sentiment analysis systems for tourism, healthcare, and consumer electronics, alongside predictive models for economic indicators and agricultural product quality. His work emphasizes practical applications across diverse sectors—e.g., using ML to forecast tourism revenue shares, model methane gas production, and enhance road lighting efficiency through image processing. He actively collaborates with industry and governmental bodies, contributing to LED conversion projects in street lighting and digital transformation initiatives in banking and e-commerce. Education: BSc in Computer and Control Education, Marmara University (2006) MSc in Computer Electronics, Süleyman Demirel University (2010) PhD in Computer Engineering (2018) Research Highlights: Integrates machine learning with domain-specific challenges—e.g., analyzing social media discourse on EV adoption, predicting phubbing health risks, and optimizing agricultural product deformation energy via non-destructive methods. He also explores sustainability metrics in energy consumption and tourism. Grants/Projects: Leads projects on AI in corporate reputation management, sustainable energy forecasting, and banking digitalization. Collaborates with Turkish Ministry of Health on app-based reputation analysis and European Union carbon emission targets.
Elif Surer is an Associate Professor and Associate Director at Middle East Technical University's Graduate School of Informatics, Department of Multimedia Informatics. She leads the Entertainment Computing and Interactive Systems Laboratory (ECISLab) and actively contributes to METU's entrepreneurship initiatives through GIMER (Entrepreneurship Research Center). Her academic leadership extends to international projects including EU Horizon Europe initiatives and collaborations with institutions like Stanford University's University Innovation Fellows program. Dr. Surer's research focuses on the intersection of game technologies, extended reality, and practical applications across diverse domains. Her work spans serious games for CBRNe (Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, and Explosive) training, virtual reality applications for mining safety, archaeological visualization, and educational technology. She has developed frameworks for heterotopias as discursive playgrounds, modular serious game development for virtual laboratories, and advanced techniques in persona building for game design. Her interdisciplinary approach bridges computer science with fields like archaeology, healthcare, and occupational safety, creating innovative solutions that address real-world challenges through immersive technologies. Her publication record demonstrates consistent contributions to top journals including IEEE Transactions on Games, Virtual Reality, and JMIR Serious Games. Recent work shows increasing focus on biological network visualization in XR environments, advanced testing frameworks for deep learning systems, and sophisticated persona modeling techniques that go beyond traditional approaches. Her research trajectory reflects growing integration of AI with immersive technologies, particularly in specialized training applications and scientific visualization. METU Performance Awards (2020, 2021) Best Poster award at METU Graduate School of Informatics Open Research Day TÜBİTAK Above-Threshold-Awards Featured in Researchers Active in Technical Games Research list Dr. Surer actively supervises numerous graduate students across multiple projects, with recent completions including theses on clickbait detection, VR for mining safety, and adaptive serious games for children with learning difficulties. She leads significant research funding including EU Horizon Europe projects like eNOTICE-2 (focused on CBRNe training), the MR4MS project for mine safety, and the Quantum Flagship project QuTE4E. Her laboratory environment fosters collaboration between computer science, architecture, and other disciplines, creating opportunities for students to engage in cutting-edge research with practical applications. As director of ECISLab, she maintains strong connections with industry partners including METU Teknokent, and actively participates in entrepreneurship initiatives through METU GIMER. Her work with the University Innovation Fellows program demonstrates commitment to developing entrepreneurial skills among students, while her research on virtual reality applications continues to expand into new domains including healthcare, archaeology, and emergency response training.
Savaş Yıldırım is an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Engineering at Istanbul Bilgi University, College of Engineering. He holds a PhD in Computer Engineering from Trakya University and completed his postdoctoral studies at Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, Germany. His academic work is centered on data science and computational linguistics, with a focus on Turkish language technologies. His research interests include Natural Language Processing, Deep Learning, Big Data Analytics, and Open Source software. He actively contributes to advancing Turkish language processing through text normalization, synonym detection, and meronym extraction. His work bridges theoretical NLP with practical applications in public policy and industry. The recent publications of Savaş Yıldırım are primarily in the domain of computational linguistics, with a strong emphasis on Turkish-specific challenges. The articles reflect a consistent trend in unsupervised and knowledge-poor methods for text analysis, focusing on morphological richness and resource scarcity in low-resource languages. Key themes include lexical semantics, text preprocessing, and pattern-based information extraction. Notable scientific contributions include projects funded by TÜBİTAK and EU programs such as: Ağlandırılmış Türk Kamu Alanının Haritalanması (TÜBİTAK 2219) Metin Madenciliği Yöntemlerinin Uygulanması (TÜBİTAK 1001) Akıllı Hazine Nakit Yönetimi (TÜBİTAK TEYDEB) İnsan Kaynakları Süreçlerinde Öngören Mekanizmalar (TÜBİTAK TEYDEB) Engelleri Kaldırarak Bir Araya Gelelim (EU Urban Net – TÜBİTAK 1001) Savaş Yıldırım has served as an academic coordinator and researcher in multiple nationally and internationally funded projects. He has also worked as a Data Science Trainer for The Banks Association of Turkey and as a trainer for IBM’s Academy of Technology. While no formal advisees are listed, his leadership in research projects indicates mentoring and collaborative supervision roles. He maintains an active research blog at openanalitik.wordpress.com . He is associated with research initiatives in data analytics and natural language processing, particularly through project-based labs and interdisciplinary teams focused on public sector data and intelligent systems. These teams often involve collaboration between academia and industry, especially in finance and human resources technology.
Arda İnceoğlu is a Lecturer in the Department of Computer Engineering at the Faculty of Computer and Information, Istanbul Technical University, where he has served since 2021. His academic career is entirely rooted at this institution, having completed all degrees there. His educational qualifications include: Ph.D. in Computer Engineering, Istanbul Technical University (2018) M.Sc. in Computer Engineering (with thesis), Istanbul Technical University (2015-2018) B.Sc. in Computer Engineering, Istanbul Technical University (2011-2015) Dr. İnceoğlu's research spans robotics, artificial intelligence, and image processing, with specialized expertise in robot manipulation failure detection, multimodal sensor fusion, 3D facial animation from audio, and generative models. His work consistently applies deep learning techniques to solve complex problems in unstructured environments. Analysis of his 11 research outputs (2015-2024) reveals a dominant focus on robotic perception and manipulation, particularly through multimodal frameworks for failure anticipation. His publications demonstrate methodological innovation in knowledge distillation for error prediction, sensor fusion architectures, and cross-domain applications of generative models in architecture and animation. No information is available regarding scientific awards, student advisement, research grants, or laboratory affiliations.
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Hasan EKER is a full-time academic member at Karabük University , specifically within the Property Protection and Security Department at Eskipazar Vocational School since 2021. He previously held research assistant (2013–2018) and academic (2012–2021) positions at İstanbul University and Gümüşhane University , respectively. PhD in Mining Engineering (2014, İstanbul University) MSc in Occupational Health and Safety (2020, Gümüşhane University) MSc in Mining Engineering (2011, İstanbul University) BSc in Mining Engineering (2008, İstanbul University) BSc in Business Administration (2007, Anadolu University) His research focuses on Mining Economics , Mine Design and Operation , and Occupational Safety and Health in Mines , with recent work extending to: Civil engineering material optimization using fly ash and mine waste Machine learning applications for risk assessment in quarries Environmental impact of mining activities Geomechanical properties of paste backfill Pandemic preparedness in industrial settings His 15 most recent publications (2022–2025) span topics from concrete durability to pandemic protocols, emphasizing computational methods, waste utilization, and geotechnical stability. He received the Tunnelers Association Thesis Award (2015) and collaborates extensively with researchers like Demet Demir Şahin and Deniz Adıgüzel . He supervises academic work in mining safety and holds memberships in the Tunneling Association and TÜBİTAK networks.
Şaziye Betül Özateş is an Assistant Professor at the Institute for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence at Boğaziçi University, specializing in Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Machine Learning. She holds a BSc, MSc, and PhD in Computer Engineering from Boğaziçi University, where she was advised by Dr. Arzucan Özgür and Dr. Tunga Güngör. Previously, she was a researcher at the University of Stuttgart’s Institute of Natural Language Processing and a post-doctoral fellow at KUIS AI Center focusing on procedural language learning from natural instructions. Her research interests include natural language processing, computational linguistics, syntactic analysis, and deep learning. She has developed several influential resources, including the BOUN Treebank (9,761 syntactically annotated Turkish sentences), IMST Treebank, and PUD Treebank. Her tools such as BOUN-Pars (a Turkish dependency parser) and the semi-supervised deep dependency parser support morphological and dependency analysis for agglutinative and code-switched languages. Her recent work focuses on historical Turkish NLP, Ottoman Turkish corpus construction, and multilingual BERT-based dependency parsing. She has contributed to code-switching NLP, semi-supervised learning techniques, and sentence similarity kernels for summarization. Her publications span 2016–2025, emphasizing treebanking, parsing optimization, and low-resource language challenges. Key projects include the NakbaTR dataset for Turkish NER, Arabic calligraphy text extraction, and dementia caregiver detection via social media analysis. Her work bridges theoretical linguistics with practical tools, making Turkish NLP resources accessible for global research.
