Physics, Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg / Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light (MPL-PL), Germany, 2020

Materials Science and Nanotechnology, Bilkent University, 2014

Physics, Bilkent University, 2012

Dr. Yazgan Tuna received his B.Sc. in Physics from Bilkent University in 2012, followed by an M.Sc. in Materials Science and Nanotechnology, also from Bilkent University, in 2014. During his master's studies, he conducted research on optical tweezers and critical Casimir forces in the group of Dr. Giovanni Volpe. He began his doctoral research at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light (MPL) under the supervision of Vahid Sandoghdar, working on plasmonic nano-antennas, interferometric scattering (iSCAT) microscopy, anomalous diffusion, and femtoscale force sensors, and received his Ph.D. in Physics from Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg in 2020.

From 2021 to 2025, Dr. Tuna was a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry at Yale University, where he worked on microtubule dynamics, microtubule lattice integrity, and label-free super-resolution imaging of biopolymers. During this period, he was awarded the Feodor Lynen Postdoctoral Research Fellowship (2022-2024) by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. Between 2025 and 2026, he served as Project Manager and Principal Investigator at Holobeam Technologies before joining the Faculty of Engineering at Özyeğin University. Dr. Tuna's current research focuses on microtubule mechanics and lattice integrity, diffusion processes in intracellular and extracellular environments, and cellular mechanics, using advanced optical microscopy techniques.

Soft matter physics, statistical physics, optical microscopy, cytoskeleton and microtubule dynamics, cellular mechanics and force generation, micro/nanofabrication