About me

I am a consulting data scientist living in New York City. Since my early childhood, my biggest passion has always been solving problems. I enjoy working on any form of mathematical challenges from solving little puzzles to analyzing complex big-data problems. I have chosen the perfect career path in computational research to fulfill my passion. I worked on an extensive range of research topics from various-scaled simulations and data analysis of water, proteins, and nucleic acids to generating probability matrices and optimizing corresponding payouts for a novel casino game. I am fascinated by the evolution of the use of data science in the industry. It is amazing to witness how scientists from all fields transformed various businesses and organizations by providing significant insights from their sale/service data. I find that many data science research in the industry have quickly became on par with academic research as in providing continuous challenges for passionate scientists. I am excited to have transitioned from academia and started exploring new challenges.

Academic Biography 

As a child, I traveled all around Turkey with my family. We had to move so many times that I went to pre-college schools from kindergarden through 11th grade in five different cities. We finally joined the 20% of Turkish population in Istanbul, and settled in the Anatolian side of the Bosphorus. Like any high school graduate in Turkey, I went through the chaotic university entrance exam (~1.5 million contestants racing to be placed in 150 thousand spots). There was no other criteria (high school GPA, extracurricular activities, reference letters, or anything else for that matter), just this one exam of 180 questions. Fortunately, I did very well in the exam, and landed at Koc University on a 5-year scholarship to study Chemistry. After college, I decided to stay in academia, and I attended Sabanci University on a research and teaching fellowship to do a Master of Science in Materials Science and Engineering. There, I published my M.S. thesis on the small world network properties of protein-protein complexes.

After my masters, I got accepted by the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Georgia Institute of Technology for a Phd in Chemistry. I completed my doctoral research under the guidance of Prof. Rigoberto Hernandez. For my PhD dissertation, I focused on the "protein folding" phenomenon --- how proteins adopt their native forms in 3D --- in terms of dynamic and comparative modeling perspectives. Next, I was a postdoctoral associate with Prof. Tom Keyes at Boston University. My postdoctoral research there was on simulating the IR-vibrational properties of water using classical simulation methods (surprisingly, it is rather easy to obtain IR frequencies using quantum calculations, but a lot more tricky using Newtonian dynamics). I was most recently a postdoctoral associate with Prof. Tamar Schlick at New York University working on understanding how the 2-meter long DNA is stored in the micron-sized nucleus. I investigated the nuclear organization of chromatin (highly compact form of DNA in complex with other proteins, mainly histones, in the cell nucleus) using coarse-grained model of nucleosomes and constrained/force-induced Monte Carlo simulations.

More details on some of the academic research projects I have worked on can be found here.

Besides computational chemistry and biology research, I have been diversifying my background with a series of onsite and online classes and independent projects. For example, I have completed certificate programs for Essentials of Project Management, Science Diplomacy, and The Business of Science for Scientists. I have executed various independent projects from investigating real estate data of San Francisco and cab ride data in New York City to twit analysis sent out during a significant sport event, some of which can be seen here.

For a more detailed list of my academic and non-academic research projects please review my Resume and Curriculum Vitae.