3 BS Alumni

Birce received her bachelor’s degree from the Department of Industrial Engineering at Ozyegin University. During her undergraduate education, she developed an interest in supply chain management and acquired skills in the field through relevant coursework. She participated in Unilever’s Supply Chain Reaction Project in her senior year, gaining valuable experience that allowed her to bridge the gap between theory and practice. She also took on roles in extracurricular activities throughout bachelor’s, such as serving as a peer advisor in OZU Peer Advisor Program and being a member of student clubs.

She pursued her education by commencing a master’s program within the same department, where she focused her research on humanitarian logistics and disaster management with the motivation of making contributions to society. She enhanced her proficiency in applying advanced analytical methods and Operations Research techniques to support decision-making in the related fields. Additionally, she served as a teaching assistant during her master’s studies, which further honed her academic and professional skills.

She is currently in her third year as a Ph.D. student at HEC Montréal, specializing in the Department of Logistics and Operations Management. Her doctoral thesis focuses on humanitarian supply chain network design and management. She has received prestigious awards and scholarships in recognition of her academic achievements during her doctoral studies, including Merit Scholarship Program for Foreign Students (PBEEE), Foundation J. Armand Bombardier Scholarship, and CIRRELT Doctoral Excellence Scholarship.

Dr. Birgül Cansu Acartürk  (CE) completed her undergraduate degree in civil engineering in 2017, finishing as the second in her department. Throughout her university years, she served as both a research and teaching assistant, honing her academic skills. Her undergraduate studies, particularly focusing on sustainable and innovative building material systems, influenced her decision to pursue doctoral education in these areas. She successfully completed her doctoral studies at The Ohio State University in 2022 with a thesis titled "Novel and Sustainable Cementitious Systems: Improving Calcium Sulfoaluminate Cement and Bacterial Concrete Properties."

During her doctoral period, Dr. Acartürk published numerous academic articles on sustainable cement-based systems and bacterial concrete. She also presented her research at national and international conferences. Currently, Dr. Acartürk continues her career as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Colorado Boulder, where her research is concentrated on bio-based cementitious systems. Her work aims to develop innovative approaches to reduce carbon dioxide emissions during cement production and usage.

Naz (CS) worked in Microsoft as a trainee when she was a sophomore. During this tenure, she regularly contributed to young children in teaching computer programming and promotional activities. During her internship at Vodafone, she worked in Data Science R&D and Business Intelligence IT departments. She got 3 patents and she had the opportunity to be the "first author" in all these patents. In her last year, she was elected to represent Özyeğin University's Faculty of Engineering in the Müdek accreditation committee.

After graduating from Özyeğin University, she did her Master's in Artificial Intelligence at the University of Leuven in Belgium. She completed this advanced master's program as an honor student in 1 year. She worked as a data scientist at Amazon Netherlands for 4 years. In this process, she provided consultancy to many companies in the Fortune 400 list in the field of artificial intelligence. She took part in the project that added artificial intelligence to the races of Formula 1. Finally, she started to work in Google, Netherlands. She is currently working at Google as a Machine Learning Specialist Engineer.