I was born in Istanbul, in 1977. I visited Ankara for the first time in 1993 and really liked the place. In 1996, in the summer village where we were regularly attending every year, I've met Bengu. Bengu was living in Ankara so I moved there in 2000, and we were married in 2002. In 2006, our daughter Ece was born. In 2007 we arrived to the Dutch town Delft where we spent two years. In 2009, we moved from Delft to Bilbao, Spain where we still reside.(...not! - as my dear "boss" has warned me yesterday, as of today (that is a 23th of the 9th month of 2013), we've been back in Ankara for a little more than 9 months and 23 days...)

Istanbul Technical University (ITU) [2000]

After attending to the Evrim primary school in Sisli and finishing high school at Bosphorus Private College in Maslak, for my B.S. studies, I was accepted to the Physics Engineering department of Istanbul Technical University just across my high school. My dissertation thesis, which I prepared under the advisorship of my dear tutor Prof. Nese Ozdemir, was in Quantum Field Theory, titled "Particle Creation in Vacuum with Moving Boundary Conditions]". I was fortunate for being lectured by Prof. Ayse Erzan and Prof. Mahmut Hortacsu during my ITU days. Eventhough we go way before with my dear friends Bora Orcal and Emir Gumrukcuoglu, it was during these years we strengthened our bonds (I'm definitely aware that the meaning somehow gets transformed to a formal level when put into writing like this..)

Middle East Technical University (METU) [2007]

Following my graduation from ITU, I've moved to Ankara, and started in METU for my grad studies. Upon failing to find an advisor to continue my field of research, with my dear mentor Prof. Sakir Erkoc's offer, I changed topics and began working in molecular physics. In my master studies, I've investigated the Casimir Effect which was kind of a continuation of my B.S. research, using the methods developed for molecular physics simulations. Thus, after preparing my "Simulation of the Casimir Effect for Various Geometries" titled M.S. thesis, I completely switched my field for nanosystems.

In my Ph.d. studies, I've worked on simulations of nanotubes, nanotoroids, nanogears and nanojunctions via Molecular Mechanics and Molecular Dynamics. On the technical side, I was busy with generation algorithms, optimization and parallelization of the routines. My "Generation and Simulations of Nanostructures of Cage Structures" titled dissertation thesis was selected and awarded as the METU Thesis of the Year. In our nanotechnology group, I had the pleasure of working with dear Huseyin Oymak, Baris Malcioglu, Efe Yazgan, Deniz Calisir Tekin, Rengin Pekoz and Nazim Dogan (eventhough we lost Efe afterwards to High Energy Physics). During these METU years I have met my dear teachers among whom are Prof. Demet Gulen, Prof. Cigdem Ercelebi, Prof. Mehmet Zeyrek and Prof. Bulent Akinoglu, and dear Bayram Tekin, Hande Toffoli, Sevim Aygar, Sultan Koksal, Gulsen Ozdemir Parlak and Zeynep Eke.

In addition to my duties as a research assistant during 2000-2007 in METU, starting from 2002, I was also assigned as the computer coordinator of our department.

Delft University of Technology (TUDelft) [2009]

After I've received my Ph.d. title from the beloved METU, I arrived at Delft in the Netherlands, to work with Dr. Marcel Sluiter for my post-doc research in the Delft University of Technology (TUDelft). There, I experienced another change of research field to study Materials Informatics. During the contracted two years, I've spent my first year to accumulate & pool data (with a gigantic help bestowed by no one other than Dr. Pierre Villars himself!) to construct a database and moved on to search for materials having similar properties as ZrO2 (Zirconia) under my "Self Healing Materials" project (usually materials expand when heated but Zirconia's high symmetric tetragonal phase has a volume that is less than its low symmetryic monoclinic phase. To exploit this, they dope it with Y (Yttrium) when it's in tetragonal phase, so that it retains this structure meta-stable at low temperatures. In the case of an event such as pressure, the tetragonal --> monoclinic phase transformation occurs and the area in proximity of these zirconia particles becomes denser (due to the expansion and pushing of the transformed zirconia). By mixing these particles to ceramics, the cracks can be stopped and be closed with this method). During this search, we discovered a new method (we would use the coordination number information of the liquid phase in deep-eutectics we obtained via ab-initio simulations and then with informatics analysis, we would determine the candidate structures and test their stability via ab-initio calculations). Applying this method, we were able to predict stable structures for the Au-Si and Au-Ge systems, and having the opportunity to work with Dr. Alain Pasturel and Dr. Noel Jakse. In our group ("Virtual Materials Laboratory") I had the prestige of working side by side with Andy Duff, Darko Simonovic, Chaitanya Krishna Ande and Maarten Jong among many other precious friends.

University of the Basque Country (EHU/UPV) [Current]

While continuing on my research in TUDelft, I've come across a post-doc ad in the home page of Bilbao Crystallographic Server which I was using very frequently. There was still some time before my contract with TUDelft to end, but the sought criteria was fitting me so well that after I asking my supervisor for permission, I've contacted Bilbao and they gracefully assured me that they were going to wait for me until my contract with TUDelft came to an end, so we agreed on principle. On November 2009, under the advisorships of Prof. J. Manuel Perez-Mato and Prof. Mois Aroyo, I've started my second postdoc position at the Bilbao Crystallographic Server in the University of the Basque Country. Although my research involves a similar field with respect to my previous position, the approach stands at a completely different point. With my group mates Danel Oronbengoa and Gemma de la Flor, while developing new programs for the software, we also work on the phase transformations via applying these very programs. My main subject here is the Barnighausen Trees where one starts from a highly symmetric structure, working his way down to less symmetric cases with the inclusion and introduction of possible distortions. Aside from this, I've also been assigned as the administrator of the server.

Thanks to my luck, up until now I've always been included in projects that combine programming/coding with physics (the only thing missing is to also find a way to combine my other passion literature with these two! 8)

Pre-university

The first book I have a clear memory of reading was Hugh Lofting's "Dr. Dolittle" series. These days, I'm reading the same book to my 4 year old daughter (the one I had was a compilation of the first two books in the serious alas since I was able to find only the first one in the old bookshops, I was translating the second book, a chapter each day until recently I let this routine skip once - I've got to return to the process). In the later years, even though I wasn't a bookworm, I managed to make it to the high school reading magazines and comics. The library of the furnished house we had rented for the summer of 1990 contained 3 books (Isaac Asimov - Fantastic Voyage; Dr. Who, Daleks; Stephen King - Skeleton Crew) which fired up my thirst for reading. After devouring all the S. Kings from a friend's (Tamer) library, I figuratively read whatever I could get my hands onto, after all I haven't been somebody who started reading with classics..

Among my books from my youth years, the first comes to mind are Omer Madra's "Reaching out to you with my novel" ("Romanimla sana bir ses"), Bukowskis, Jonathan Ames - "I pass like night" and Salingers. While living in a bed of roses, Nietzsche, followed by Sartre thankfully ruined my youth. It didn't take long for me to discover Kafka and Oguz Atay (it is always curious for me to discover Oguz Atay after discovering Vedat Turkali).

The rest soon followed rapidly: credit goes to the eXpress magazine acting as a school from which I learned about many more authors.

University years

When I arrived at the university, among my authors were Borges, Edip Cansever, Cemal Sureya, Haydar Ergulen, Ernesto Sabato, Michel Tournier, Roland Barthes and Tezer Ozlu.

Two events during those years motivated me both as a reader and especially as a writer: HiTNet and The 3 Bears. HiTNet was a messaging board existing due to the BBSs and has frequently been a reason for me to write not very unlike to the temptation of blank pages for the authors. I've also met most of my friends whom I'm still in touch, thanks to HiTNet. The 3 Bears was a literature group we had formed with Mehmet Batur and Serkan Isin. We were each other's readers, editors and critics at the same time.

My haiku interest become more intense during the university years. My attendance to a Japanase course in order to be able to read the haikus from the original corresponds to my first year in the university. I can not say I had a huge success on the language other than memorizing Basho's cuckoo (?) haiku (hototogisu / nake nake tabe so / isogawashi) and a couple of words... Other than Basho, I also like Issa and Sampu but still, Basho comes first. I don't think good things about people who compose English haikus, specifically the ones who try to impose the 5/7/5. Among the English writing poets, I admire T.S. Eliot and e.e. cummings fascinates me from time to time (for whatever we lose (like a you or a me) / it's always ourselves we find in the sea for an example)("but still," T.S.E. "comes first.").

When the university was over, I had quite a number of authors in my collection. In Turkish Literature, poets Ahmet Hasim and Sheikh Galib and also Turgut Uyar, Lale Muldur (I stopped here to think about the writers - there is Orhan Pamuk and Oguz Atay but they are in a way, exceptions: it's a complex thing concerning Orhan Pamuk and Oguz Atay arrived a bit earlier. Oh, yet there is Sevim Burak and of course Nazli Eray - unfortunately I was never fascinated by Sait Faik, and with Tezer Ozlu, following a short period of a passionate fascination, "we parted our ways". Even though a similar phenomena occured with Cemal Sureya, I still, from time to time, find myself returning to his "Words of Love" ("Sevda Sozleri"). I discovered Cem Akas with his "Crime and Punishment" ("Suc ve Ceza") and "7"). Among the foreign authors Iris Murdoch, Doris Lessing, Michel Butor, Emile Cioran, Italo Svevo, Norman Mailer, Yukio Mishima and Yasunari Kawabata (of the last two what is left to me is so few other than the acknowledgment of having read "After the Banquet" and "The sailor who lost his sea") were the ones I had started to read.

If you have come this far reading, I would like to apologize for cutting it short here, but, as you might have guessed, what I was doing was to translate the related section I had composed for the Turkish version of the "About Me" page, but it seems like a bit pointless to assume the interest of a foreign visitor with heavily depending on the Turkish Literature, so I will present a summary of it:

After all the existantialist literature, I finally managed to start the classics a bit late, you know, Dostoyeyski, The Lady of the Camellias, Dead Souls (which I still regret reading), followed by Balzac, with almost complete bibliography. I couldn't manage to plunge in neither Tolstoy nor Chekov (and then there's also my hatred for the theater, but it is really a complicated case). I've realized I had forgot to mention Bilge Karasu. In the category of authors whom I've liked a book of theirs but couldn't find the similar joy from their other books, we have Julian Barnes ("A History of the World in 10½ Chapters"), Boris Vian ("Froth on the daydream"), William Golding ("The Inheritors"). And then there are the trips I've taken following the trails of the beatniks - the path of Kerouac, Burroughs, Ginsberg, Ferlinghetti. You can say I went pretty far ahead but as you might guess, the return voyage wasn't a bed of roses but one way or another, I managed somehow (repenting this, repenting that, etc..). Last, but not least, there is the league of mean guys: William Faulkner, James Joyce, Raymond Carver of which I only like the latter (especially if taken along with a young Tom Waits and Edward Hopper).

Ankara

After graduation, and upon arriving to Ankara (from Istanbul), due to three main reasons (HiTNet and similar Fido-like messaging networks defeat against the internet; my resignation from the Three Bears; starting a happy and content relationship) I somehow found myself "a bit" distanced from the "heavy" literature as a reader and "light years" away as a writer. I became more and more devoted to science-fiction & fantasy (not that I'm saying these in a "lesser" kind of way, of course "good SF is good literature!"). I detested Doris Lessing's SF series and thanks to my friend Emir, I got my hands on Ian M. Banks' "The Culture" series which set my bar to the stars. Due to my reading of the Dragonlance Chronicles and Legends trilogies first, in high school, however much I had tried, I couldn't have managed to start properly to the "Lord of the Rings" series but during this time,with determination and the fact that the movies had came out, I did. Also I've started reading the Harry Potter series around then, as well. I had left Stephen King's The Dark Tower series in it's 3rd book (which was the most recent one when I had been kidnapped by the existentialists), so I started from the beginning and read till the end. With Owen and my honorary blood-brother Dogan's recommendations, I began reading Haruki Murakami and loved it (and if you ask me now, I'd recommend you "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle" and "Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World" from his books which, coincidentally are the first two books of his books I've read). LeGuin's The Earthsea series were also read in this era, and I met Neil Gaiman through the Sandman. As I was fascinated by the Sandman, I went forward and read the books, watched the series/movies (of which I would say "the Anansi Boys" and "Neverwhere" as the best 2). I hated Ballard and re-read the Doris Lessings and Salingers from the beginning till the end (except "The Catcher in the Rye" which always failed to impress me, I wouldn't make a good assasin I guess). Among the books I've read in those years and fascinated by it, is W. Somerset Maugham's "The Razor's Edge". When two bookworms get married to each other, you can appreciate that there is a considerable increase in the number of books, although never doubling (due to the common books). With regards to Bengu, I read Italo Calvinos (she really adores his work while I "sympathize").

The Netherlands

While in the Netherlands, I was stripped from the "privilege" of spending 2 hours everyday in the buses and other public transports meaning that my reading habit was heavily damaged, thus a bad book spoiling and wasting my time like 4-5 times it used to. I had attempted reading the Dune series when I was back in high school, mostly thanks to the video game by Cryo. Even though I also liked the movie adaptation (David Lynch's), I couldn't quite advance in reading. I managed to do that while in the Netherlands but after 4 books of the series, I still didn't manage to find something to appreciate. I like Tarkovsky's "Solyaris". I also like Lem's book but it's the movie which I have a special spot. Contrary to this fact, whatever I do, I couldn't bare to watch "Stalker" for some long time. It was the Strugatsky Brothers' original book that came to rescue me. After reading it and appreciating it I was able to enjoy the movie (even though the process took about a year). While speaking of him, let me also add that Stanislaw Lem holds a very dear place for me.

What happened other than these while I was in the Netherlands? Miranda July, whom I admire both her movie and self, published a collection of stories ("Nobody Belongs Here More Than You Do") and I asked my dear friend Hande to bring me a copy of it from the Edinburgh Book Fest (@the Fringe) and that book became one of my favorites of all time. When Bengu had bought Hugh Laurie's "The Gun Seller", Yasemin had added Stephen Fry's "The Liar", saying "Laurie can not be without Fry!". "The Gun Seller" was matching the expectations more or less but on the other hand, "The Liar" was just assuming that your expectations were too high and trying to adjust the course for that level, offering so many things and failing mixed up at the end. Susana Clarke's "Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell" was a wonderful and enjoyable book, which made us looking forward to the author's future works. Then, I thought to myself "I should read Thomas Mann" and I read and I died. OK, maybe I'm not dead but worst has happened in which I was grabbed by Schopenhauer and I'm still under his influence.

Spain

Since my arrival here, I mostly read Schopenhauer if I'm to read something (other than Proust's "In Search of Lost Time" which first by my hbb Dogan, followed by Liliana's heavy lobbying) and I don't sincerely believe that I'll ever be able to break this cycle. If somebody asks, you can safely reply "Proust during the day and Schopenhauer by night", after all there's not much chance that this section will get updated..

• jim jarmusch - *.*
• aki kaurismäki - *.*
• sophia coppola -
  • lost in translation
  • virgin suicides
• richard kelly - donnie darko
• luc besson - subway
• claude sautet - un coeur en hiver (a heart in winter)
• frank capra - it's a wonderful life
• stephen frears - high fidelity
• jean luc godard - à bout de souffle (breathless)
• kar wai wong - *.* (except "my blueberry nights")
• marc caro, jean-pierre jeunet - la cité des enfants perdus (the city of lost children)
• miranda july - me and you and everyone we know
• coen brothers -
  • barton fink
  • hudsucker proxy
  • the man who wasn't there
• wes anderson - *.*
• woody allen - *.* (except the ones he shot outside NY)
• richard curtis - love actually
• jae-young kwak - yeopgijeogin geunyeo (my sassy girl)
• anders thomas jensen -
  • blinkende lygter (flickering lights)
  • de grønne slagtere (green butchers)
  • adams æbler (adam's apples)
• jason reitman - up in the air
• françois truffaut - vivement dimanche! (confidentially yours)

Oguz Atay, Edip Cansever, Jean-Paul Sartre, Haruki Murakami, Matsuo Basho, J.D. Salinger, Lale Muldur, Haydar Ergulen, Turgut Uyar, Seyh Galip, Nick Hornby - High Fidelity, Chuck Palahniuk - Fight Club, Neil Gaiman - The Sandman, Milazzo & Berardi - Ken Parker, Hugo Pratt - Corto Maltese, Balzac, Iain M. Banks - The Culture Series, Ahmet Hasim, Orhan Pamuk - The Black Book (Kara Kitap), Roland Barthes, Iris Murdoch, Dostoyevski - The Brothers Karamazov (Brat'ya Karamazovy), Raymond Carver, Horace McCoy - They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, Boris Vian - The Froth on the Daydream (L'Écume des Jours), Michel Butor - Second Thoughts (La Modification), Jonathan Ames - I Pass Like Night, Miranda July - No One Belongs Here More Than You, Julian Barnes - A History of the World in 10½ Chapters, Doris Lessing - stories that are set in Britain, Thomas Mann - stories, Arthur Schopenhauer

Mostly 80s and punk, almost never jazz. A more detailed info can be acquired via my stats on the last.fm page in which the top 10 -as of the moment (July, 2010)- is listed as follows: Neko Case, Ramones, Blondie, Camera Obscura, Porthishead, The Cure, Morphine, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Pogues and Joy Division.