3 BS Alumni

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.

Ayşan (ME) completed her undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering. Shortly after her graduation, she started the Mechanical Engineering Master's Program at Özyeğin University. During her master program, she conducted researches in the field of medical robotics. In 2018, she had the opportunity to present some of her studies at the international platform Biorob (International Conference on Biomedical Robotics and Biomechatronics).

Ayşan, who has been working as a product development, design and release engineer at Ford Otosan, which operates in the automotive sector, since 2019, has worked with many teams and companies from Turkey and abroad in their projects in Europe, England, Africa, due to Ford Otosan's global structure. Ayşan manages processes such as designing and commissioning in accordance with the requirements of many different locations such as the Far East. She is contributing to many vehicle models within Ford, with various functionality, innovative ideas, and products of different designs, materials and strengths. In addition to all these engineering competencies, Ayşan maintains the role of Kanban Master and she facilitates the adaptation of her teammates to the agile structure.

Yıldıray Yılmaz (CE), received his bachelor’s degree at Özyeğin University with a high-honor certificate in the civil engineering department. He is awarded as being the highest ranked student among 2020 graduation class. During his undergraduate studies, he founded Özyeğin University’s Construction Club and ran as president for two years. The construction club has reached more than 200 members during his presidency and organized more than 20 different events.

His original research paper was published with the great help of Dr. Seyis at ‘Building and Environment’ journal under the title of ‘Mapping the scientific research of the life cycle assessment in the construction industry: A scientometric analysis’.

Parallel with his master studies, he joined Metsims Sustainability Consulting company in October 2021. For over a year, he works as a sustainability consultant. His primary task is to analyze and model the environmental burdens of construction products and building from life cycle perspective. So far, he has modelled and assessed the environmental impacts of 20+ different construction products and one residential and one factory building. Besides environmental performance modelling, he currently works on improving one of the biggest life cycle assessment database for construction products in the world.