Three researchers from the Middle East Technical University have been given the Outstanding Young Scientists Award 2022 (GEBİP) by the Turkish Academy of Sciences (TÜBA). This year’s awards have been given to 34 highly accomplished young scientists from 21 different institutions.
Assoc. Prof. Serdar Kocaman from the Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering and Assoc. Prof. Çağatay Dengiz from the Department of Chemistry received the GEBİP award in the field of Life Sciences, while Asst. Prof. Eda Aydoğan Güngör from the Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering was deemed worthy of the award in the field of Engineering.
TÜBA-GEBİP awards have been given since 2001 in order to encourage outstanding young scientists working in the fields of engineering, social sciences, medical sciences and life sciences to continue their scientific studies in Turkey, form their own working groups, carry out high-quality projects at the international level, as well as rewarding their publications. In addition to providing financial support of 35,000 TL to the award winners every year for three years, TÜBA-GEBİP awards also include an additional support of 15,000 TL each year for PhD students working on their theses and consultancy from academics.
Another objective of GEBİP is to create a competent generation of researchers in Turkey and thus contribute to the country’s scientific development by creating a network that is renewed every three years and consists of outstanding young researchers working in the fields of social sciences, medical sciences, life sciences and engineering and their working groups.
The studies conducted by our award-winning academics are as follows:
Assoc. Prof. Serdar Kocaman
The technical infrastructure that enables internet access includes systems in which optical and electrical structures are used together. Therefore, a widely preferred option is the hybrid systems in which silicon is used up to its performance limits as it is in the electronics industry, and where silicon is not enough, materials of III-V group are used. In the development of these systems, the design phase is crucial in terms of speed and economy. Today, the fact that multiple material systems and technologies are used in these systems causes the design phase to be conducted via classical tools part by part. Dr. Serdar Kocaman’s proposed project focuses on creating a platform for co-designing on-chip devices.
Assoc. Prof. Çağatay Dengiz
Assoc. Prof. Çağatay Dengiz conducts research at the interface of organic synthesis, computational chemistry, and materials science. In addition to its contributions to fundamental science, the studies are expected to find applications in the field of nonlinear optics.
Asst. Prof. Eda Aydoğan Güngör
The increase in the world’s population and industrial developments have caused serious environmental pollution. For this reason, there are many research studies on “green energy” concepts and on how to reduce carbon emissions in transportation. In the Energy, Aerospace and Space systems, as the temperature increases and the weight of the components decreases, the fuel used can be reduced by increasing the efficiency, and thus the carbon emission can be minimized. Titanium alloys are used quite often in the aerospace industry. However, these alloys have a low resistance to both wear and high temperature. On the other hand, refractory high entropy alloys have high strength and wear resistance at high temperatures. By using these two alloys, in Asst. Prof. Eda Aydoğan Güngör’s project, functionally graded material coating will be produced utilizing the cold spray additive manufacturing method.
