Prof. Dr. Mehmet Yıldız, the Deputy Rector of Sabancı University in Charge of Research and a Faculty Member at the Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences (FENS), Assoc. Dr. Burcu Saner Okan, a Researcher at SU IMC, and Dr. Bertan Beylergil, a Faculty Member at Alanya Alaaddin Keykubat University, was found eligible to be supported under the call for applications of BOREN (National Boron Research Institute) titled “Production and Application of Organobor Compounds and Boron Polymers”. 

The project titled “Design and development of multi-functional hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) reinforced thermoset and thermoplastic-based hybrid composites that can be used in the thermal management of aerospace systems” coordinated by Sabancı University also involves Eurotec Engineering Plastics as the industrial stakeholder and AIMPLAS, a Spanish Plastic Research Center, as the subcontractor. Additionally, the organizations supporting the project, namely BOEING, TUSAŞ, and ROKETSAN, will share the characteristics that the materials produced should have throughout the project and take on a guiding role. 

The two-year project involves the production and characterization of h-BN reinforced thermoset and thermoplastic composite systems and different byproducts that can be used in thermal management applications in the aerospace sector with commercialization potential.

The patented nano-clay-reinforced food packaging technology, developed at Sabancı University and Sabancı University Nanotechnology Research and Application Center (SUNUM) to prolong the shelf life of food products, was licensed by TreeT BUBA Agriculture and Technology Company.

The technology, which received patent certificates in the United States, Turkey, and 5 different European countries, was licensed to TreeT BUBA, an agricultural company of BUBA Ventures. The project licensed to TreeT BUBA was submitted to TÜBİTAK’s Call for Patent License (1516) and was found eligible for support by TÜBİTAK and became one of the 14 projects supported. 

With the licensing agreement signed, these packaging films that extend the shelf life of food products will be available to the consumer in the coming period. 

Vegetables and fruits will no longer perish 

The packaging material developed aims to prevent spoilage of food. Packaging film containing nano-clay can absorb gases released by fruits and vegetables causing them to spoil. In addition, when these packaging films are reinforced with anti-bacterial agents, the formation of bacteria on food is prevented. The nano-clay in the packaging serves as a barrier, preventing the entry of gases that cause spoilage. 

Studies have shown that foods such as tomatoes, strawberries, greens, bananas, and chicken meat, which can perish quickly even in the refrigerator, have significantly longer shelf life when packaged with the packaging films developed. 

The technology was developed within the scope of the TÜBİTAK ARDEB 1003 project under the coordination of Hayriye Ünal, a Researcher at SUNUM, and Yusuf Menceloğlu and Fevzi Çakmak Cebeci, Faculty Members at the Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences (FENS) of Sabancı University, and Serkan Ünal, a Researcher at the Integrated Manufacturing Center (IMC).

A team consisting of scientists from the United States of America and the Netherlands identified the most influential scientists of the world based on variables such as number of scientific papers, number of citations, number of authors, authorship position, and citation to own paper and using a composite indicator scientific impact index.

The study classifying 161,000 top scientists of the world into 22 scientific fields and 176 subfields was carried out under the coordination of Stanford University and published in the scientific journal named Plos Biology. The study was conducted on researchers who had published at least 5 papers by filtering Scopus data up to May 2020 and listed 161 thousand scientists. 

Yusuf Leblebici, İsmail Çakmak, Erhan Budak, Emre Erdem, Ali Koşar, Lütfi Taner Tunç, and Yaşar Gürbüz, Faculty Members at the Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences, S. Arzu Wasti, a Faculty Member at the Faculty of Management Sciences, Henning Stichtenoth, our Emeritus Faculty Member, and Yuda Yürüm, who we lost last year, have been included in The List of The Most Influential Scientists of The World, which included 857 scientists from Turkey.

A promotional event for the ENRICH in Brazil Project, which is sponsored by the European Union and where Sabancı University is the Turkish project partner, took place online on 30 November 2020, Monday.

In addition to general information about the international project, Berna Beyhan, a Faculty Member at the Faculty of Management Sciences, provided information about the ENRICH in Brazil’s activities, services, opportunities for cooperation between the EU and Brazil, and the support provided to this end.  

Enrich in Brazil (formerly known as CEBRABIC), in which a project partner of Sabancı University, is a pilot center established by the European Network of Research and Innovation Centres and Hubs in Brazil. Apart from Brazil, 8 different organizations from Germany, Portugal, Belgium, Hungary, Austria, Spain, and Turkey contribute to the project. Sabancı University is the Turkish partner of the project.  

The consortium aims to develop research, innovation, and business relations between Europe and Brazil, and to share innovation practices, experience, and knowledge between organizations. Founded as a non-profit partnership, ENRICH in Brazil aims to provide and strengthen science, technology, and innovation-oriented collaboration by bringing together organizations from different fields and industries from Europe and Brazil.

You can visit the website of ENRICH in BRAZIL at https://brazil.enrichcentres.eu/ or contact them at brazil@enrichcentres.eu to learn more about the project’s activities.

As part of the Supporting Public Institutions for Tendering Preparations (STEP) Project, the “Leadership Development Program” designed for EU Experts serving at the Directorate for European Union Affairs was completed in virtual classrooms with the cooperation between the Executive Development Unit (EDU) of Sabancı University and Yenibirlider Association.

The 6-module program took place with 8 half-days of virtual classroom and a video training. In addition to lectures, the program included 4 different Inspiring Speech Sessions organized by Yenibirlider Association. The program continued with lectures on New World Order After Covid-19, Networking and Collaborations, Digital Transformation and Industry 4.0, Personal Leadership and Development, Negotiation and Persuasion, Being an Effective Team, Leadership in VUCA World, Strategic Thinking, and VUCA World. 

Sabancı University Executive Development Unit (EDU) is a development partner of Yenibirlider Association as well as the Directorate of European Union Affairs of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The project of Nihan ALP, a Faculty Member at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS) of Sabancı University, was found eligible to be supported within the scope of TÜBİTAK Career Development Program 3501.

Nihan Alp’s project titled “Monitoring The Neural Representation of Local-Global Motion Perception in EEG Signals with Intermodulation Frequencies by Separating in An Objective Way” was found eligible to be supported within the scope of TÜBİTAK Career Development Program 3501 which aims to encourage postdoctoral researchers at the beginning of their careers by supporting their research projects. Thus, the program serves to support the works of young researchers who will assume the academic leadership of the 21st century, to ensure young scientists have the best possible career both as researchers and educators, and to improve the nation’s scientific level, and to enhance the role of science in the development of the country.

Information about the content of Nihan Alp's project is as follows: “The process of local-global perception, which is an ability that we often use in our daily lives, is one of the main questions in the neuroscience literature. For example, the ability to read is to be able to create and perceive a word (global) by combining many letters (local) in the correct order. It is believed that reading difficulties of patients with dorsal simultanagnosia and dyslexia are caused by a lack of functionality in local-global perception mechanisms. It is also known that in autism spectrum disorders, the visual processing process of local-global perception is not typical. The process of visual processing of local-global perception is also important in the perception of motion. The ability to see movement is crucial in that it supports basic visually-oriented behaviors such as finding direction and breaking camouflage. Local-global motion perception, which is a core perceptual event, occurs as a result of the combination of these two basic features of the visual system (local-global and motion perception), which allows us, for example, to understand the direction and speed of cars when crossing the road. The aim of this project is to monitor the neural representations (temporal monitoring of local and global motion perception in brain signals) of the local-global motion perception, which is one of the most fundamental cornerstones of the visual system, in an objective way (mathematically, computationally, clearly, and consistently, in a defined and measurable way) by separating them.” 

We congratulate our Faculty Member. 

The “2020 Şirin Tekeli Research Awards” organized by Sabancı University Gender and Women's Studies Center of Excellence (Su Gender) in memory of Şirin Tekeli, who had conducted pioneering work on democracy, academic freedom, gender equality, and feminism, were presented to their winners. The winners of the research awards, given since 2017 in order to preserve, share, and diversify the rich heritage left by Şirin Tekeli, were announced as part of the Şirin Tekeli Research Award Ceremony and Conference which took place online this year. 

The Research Awards given by Sabancı University Sabancı University Gender and Women's Studies Center of Excellence (Su Gender) in memory of scholar Şirin Tekeli, who had conducted pioneering work on democracy, academic freedom, gender equality, and feminism, were presented to their winners with an online conference.  SU Gender has been organizing the Şirin Tekeli Research Award Ceremony and Conference since 2017 in order to contribute to the preserving, sharing, and diversification of the rich heritage left by Şirin Tekeli.

Ayşe Akalın-Demet Lüküslü, Yonca Cingöz, Gülçün Con Wright, and Füsun Kökalan Çımrın were awarded the Şirin Tekeli Research Award for supporting and encouraging gender research in Turkey.

Applications of doctoral students and researchers who had completed their doctoral studies no more than 15 years ago were accepted for the award given for the fourth time this year. Research proposals were evaluated by an intercollegiate selection committee on the basis of academic criteria.

The conference, which brings together authors and researchers in the field of gender and women's studies, took place online this year. Speaking at the opening of the conference, Hülya Adak, the Director of SU Gender, said: “This year, we are having our first online award ceremony and conference. We started to hold the conference in 2017, the year Şirin Tekeli passed away. We want to expand our topics a little more next year. We hope that these awards focusing on the social sciences and humanities will be supplemented with new awards on climate justice, disabilities, and gender studies. Over the past 3 years, we have supported 27 studies. We want to compile these studies as a book next year and publish them in 2021 or later.”

As part of the opening ceremony, Ayşe Gül Altınay, a Faculty Member at Sabancı University and the former Director of SU Gender, had an online interview with Füsun Ertuğ, one of the founders of the Women's Works Library and Information Center Foundation. Noting that it is an honor to come together, even in an online environment, to commemorate Şirin Tekeli, whose role and place in the feminist movement are very important, Ayşe Gül Altınay pointed out the role of Füsun Ertuğ in the feminist movement. Altınay said, “This year, we are celebrating the 30th anniversary of the establishment of two very important institutions of the feminist movement in Turkey, the Library of Women's Works and the Purple Roof. We are very grateful to everyone who founded and preserved the Women’s Works Library and kept it alive as a very valuable research, archive, and meeting place for all of us. Füsun Ertuğ is a researcher, activist, and archivist who has made a significant contribution to the creation of the visual and written archive of the feminist movement since the early 80s. It is a great honor and joy to be commemorating Şirin Tekeli with Füsun Ertuğ, who have conducted a wide range of pioneering works from creating a visual archive of Solidarity March Against Beating and Carie Festival held in March 1987 to creating the Women's Works Library with Şirin Tekeli and telling the story of the creative relationship that women in different regions of Turkey established with medicinal plants and soil through ethnobotanical research.”

Füsun Ertuğ stated in her speech that it was very meaningful for Sabancı University to give such an award on behalf of Şirin Tekeli and said:

“A gift to Şirin Tekeli's efforts to support scientific research. It is really important that Şirin Tekeli brings us all together and ensures institutionalization. Today, we celebrate the 30th anniversary of both the Women's Works Library and Information Center Foundation and Purple Roof Women’s Shelter Foundation. The library is a joint achievement of the women's movement. Many women who are pioneers of women's movements, especially Şirin, donated their private archives to us. Amazing results will be achieved when researchers start working on them first-hand. This, in turn, will reveal how rich the shared heritage of women in Turkey is.”

LAST YEAR’S AWARD WINNERS SHARED THEIR RESEARCH RESULTS

As part of the conference, two separate panels were held in which researchers who won the Şirin Tekeli Award last year shared their works. On the first panel, the following researchers shared their results: Sezen Bayhan – “The Evolution of Gendered-Militarized National Identity Building in Textbooks and Curriculum", Z. Selen Artan – “Darülbedayi's “other” Women: Theatre and Social Memory from The Ottoman Era to The Republic”, Derya Acuner - “Notes from The First Year of A Study on The Political Connotations of Fabric in Turkish Contemporary Art.”

On the second panel of the conference, the following researchers who had won the Research Incentive Award last year shared their results: Burcu Binbuğa – “The Ecology Struggle from The Ecofeminist Perspective”, Pınar Karababa Demircan – “Intersecting and Evolving Forms of Women's Labor: Examples of Silk Carpet and Kutnu Weaving”, Merve Koç – “Experiences of Masculinity in The Normative Body: The Discourse of Hegemonic Masculinity and Dwarf Men”, Özlem Ezer - “The Religion and Beliefs Living in The Narratives of Syrian Refugee Women.”

The conference ended this year with an online ceremony where the winners were presented with their awards.

The “Life Hats Workshop” was held on 28 November 2020, Saturday in cooperation between Sabancı University and Teacher Network to facilitate the adaptation of teachers to school after the pandemic. 

The teacher training workshop of the Adaptation to School Kit in the New Period created by the Teacher Network Psychological Counseling and Guidance Branch Group took place online with the participation of 25 psychological counselors in cooperation with Sabancı University. 

Psychological counselors will be able to implement the lesson of the training digitally or physically in their own schools after the “Life Hats Workshop” held by Kubilay Özaydın, Muhammet Ali Mert, Sibel Tosuner, and Özge Güvenç Özsaka from the Creators for Change to ensure that teachers are able to meet their own social and emotional needs, which stood during the epidemic period.  

Teacher Network is a network of sharing and cooperation where teachers come together with their colleagues and people and institutions from different disciplines. Click here for detailed information about Teacher Network.

Click here for detailed information about the Life Hats Workshop. 

Öğretmen Ağı, öğretmenlerin, meslektaşları, farklı disiplinlerden kişi ve kurumlarla bir araya gelerek güçlendiği paylaşım ve işbirliği ağıdır. Detaylı bilgi için tıklayın.

Yaşam Şapkaları Atölyesi hakkında detaylı bilgi için tıklayın. 

1931 born Ayvalık-based artist Teoman Madra’s extensive artworks including photographs, video, multimedia, and performance works produced from 1960 to 2000, have been on a comprehensive archiving process that is recently initiated by the academician and artist Selcuk Artut. Madra is considered among the pioneers of the Media Arts stream in Turkey. 

In this context, many recent storage media such as slides, negative films, VHS tapes, DVDs that contain Madra's works will be transported to the contemporary data storage platforms on the cloud.  Artut aims to organize this archive with today's technologies and present it to the interest of the art scene.

Following the completion of the first stage of the work of organizing the archive of Madra in Gate27's Ayvalık guest house, the second stage continues in the BM Contemporary Art Center Archive in Istanbul. The productions of media art based on the Fluxus and Zero movements of the 1960s constitute an important role in the contemporary art. 

In this context, Teoman Madra archive also constitutes a source of crucial importance for the related work accomplished in Turkey. You can follow Teoman Madra's archive work on teomanmadra.artworks Instagram account.

#teomanmadra #gate27 #selcukartut #medyasanatı #teknolojiksanatınkorunması #bmçağdaşsanatmerkeziarşivi #ayvalık #sabancıüniversitesi

@teomanmadra.artworks @selcukartut

Sabancı University Engineering and Natural Sciences faculty member Michel Lavrauw, will serve as the Editor-in-Chief in the Elsevier journal: "Journal of Combinatorial Theory, Series A". 

As one of the two chief editors of the Journal of Combinatorial Theory, Series A (JCTA), Michel Lavrauw will be responsible for all papers published in the journal. Further responsibilities include the Aims and Scope of the journal, the Editorial Board, and possible Special Issues. 

About Journal of Combinatorial Theory, Series A

The Journal of Combinatorial Theory was founded in 1966 and split into two parts in 1971 as the field grew rapidly: Series A and Series B. The Journal of Combinatorial Theory, Series A, is one of the premier journals in its area and sets very high standards for publication. Only papers which meet these high standards proceed to a phase of review which involves a detailed refereeing process.

The Journal of Combinatorial Theory, Series A, publishes original mathematical research concerned with theoretical and practical aspects of combinatorics in all branches of science. The journal is primarily concerned with finite and discrete structures, designs, finite geometries, codes, combinatorics with number theory, combinatorial games, extremal combinatorics, combinatorics of storage, and other important theory/applications of combinatorics. It is a valuable tool for mathematicians and computer scientists, and for scientists working in information theory. Manuscripts accepted by the journal are generally expected to solve or make a significant step towards a solution of an important open problem, to develop a new proof technique, or to substantially advance our knowledge in some other way.

Please click for further information: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/journal-of-combinatorial-theory-series-a