The Sabancı University Professional Graduate Programs 2022 Commencement  will be held on Saturday, October 15, 2022.

Sabancı University will conduct its Professional Graduate Programs 2022 Graduation Ceremony at Tuzla Campus on October 15, 2022. 

Professional Graduate Programs include Information Technology, Energy Technology and Management, Cyber Security, Data Analytics, Masters in Finance, MBA, Professional MBA, and Executive MBA programs.

The Commencement Ceremony will be broadcast live on Sabancı University YouTube channel.

• 16:00 – 17:00  Distribution of Caps and Gowns (SGM Foyer Area)
• 17:00 – 17:45  Alumni Walk Rehearsal (SGM Mail Hall)
• 17:45 – 18:15  Guests Taking Their Places in the SGM
• 18:15 – 18:30  Gathering for the Alumni Walk and Alumni Taking Their Places in the Hall Accompanied by Music
• 18:30 – 20:00  Commencement Ceremony
• 20:00 – 21:00  Closing & Catering

Sabancı University Gender and Women’s Studies Center of Excellence (SU Gender) invites you to the book talk, "Queer in Translation: Sexual Politics under Neoliberal Islam" by Evren Savcı.

Online on October 13, Thursday at 17.00 (GMT +3)

For registration: https://bit.ly/SUGender_booktalk_EvrenSavci

Under the philosophy of “Creating and Developing Together”, Sabancı University MBA program aims to support future leaders’ ability to identify the needs of society and how to contribute to its improvement.

Sabancı MBA program is designed to give students an understanding that every individual can and has a responsibility to contribute positively to society. Through Civic Involvement Projects (CIP), young people learn that they can make a difference individually as well as collectively. Therefore, the CIP is a required part of the Sabancı MBA curriculum during the orientation week.

With this respect, at the beginning of the 2022-2023 Academic Year, Sabancı MBA program students had the chance to listen to various NGOs and had the opportunity to have some volunteering activities.

Zeynep Bahar Çelik

In cooperation with the CIP team of Sabancı University, students learned the importance of Civic Involvement Projects and the importance of teamwork in general. CIP Manager Zeynep Bahar Çelik also demonstrated interactive activities with MBA students to build teamwork, cooperation, and communication within the group in addition to clarifying expectations for the program.

Remarking that the Sabancı Business School places great importance on educating socially responsible leaders, Dean Prof. Dr. Nihat Kasap commented: “As Sabancı Business School, we encourage our students to become leaders with an innovative and creative mindset through the academic curriculum while developing their soft skills to create a difference in the society”.

Students participated in fieldwork on the themes of animal rights, sustainability and environment, and prejudice. With the support and interest of Local Animal Protection Volunteer Pınar Satıoğlu, they spent time with the animals in Tepeören Animal Shelter and helped with their care. They participated in the coastal cleaning activity in Pendik, which was organized with the support of Pendik Municipality. They also received training called “Living Together” at the Association of Refugees. Within the scope of this program, it was aimed that students are more aware of the society and environment they live in.

Sabancı University Corporate Governance Forum will hold a meeting with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Turkey Representative, Hassan Mohtashami, on Tuesday, October 11, 2022, at 16:00, at the Sabancı Business School 1073.

The topic of the meeting will be “Sexual and Reproductive Health, Gender-Based Violence and Population Dynamics”.

The meeting will be hold on Tuesday, October 11, 2022, at Sabancı Business School 1073

All members of Sabancı University are invited.

Aslı Demirgüç-Kunt, who served as the Chief Economist of the Europe and Central Asia region at the World Bank and who currently works as a non-resident fellow at the Center for Global Development, has been included in the Distinguished Research Fellowship program of our university.

Making a statement on the subject, our President Yusuf Leblebici said, “We are delighted to add one more distinguished scientist, who served as the Chief Economist of the Europe and Central Asia region at the World Bank, who has achieved international success, and who has a worldwide reputation for her studies, into the Distinguished Research Fellowship program that we started in the 2019-2020 Academic year.”

Aslı Demirgüç-Kunt will contribute to our University with her studies in finance and private sector development.

Other members of our Distinguished Research Fellows program include Mete Atatüre, Professor of Physics at the University of Cambridge, and Director of Studies and Tutor at St. John’s College, Özlem Ayduk, Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Director of the Relationships and Social Cognition Lab., and Fellow of the Society of Personality & Social Psychology, Holger Alexander Klein, Lisa and Bernard Selz Professor of Medieval Art at the University of Cambridge, and Director of the Sakıp Sabancı Center for Turkish Studies at Columbia University, Serdar Taşran, Principal Engineer at Amazon Web Services, and Mehmet Toner, Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School.

Who is Aslı Demirgüç-Kunt?

Asli Demirgüç-Kunt is a former Chief Economist of the Europe and Central Asia region at the World Bank, a position she held until August 2022, and currently a Non-Resident Fellow at the Center for Global Development. Over her 30-year career in the World Bank, she also served as the Director of Research, Director of Development Policy, and the Chief Economist of the Finance and Private Sector Development Network, conducting research and advising on financial and private sector development issues.

The author of over 100 publications, she has published widely in academic journals and is among the most-cited researchers in the world. Her research has focused on the links between financial development, firm performance, and economic development. Banking and financial crises, financial regulation, access to financial services and inclusion, as well as SME finance and entrepreneurship are among her areas of research. She has also created the Global Financial Development Report series and Global Findex financial inclusion database. 

She was the President of the International Atlantic Economic Society (2013-14) and Director of the Western Economic Association (2015-18) and serves on the editorial boards of professional journals. Prior to joining the World Bank, she was an Economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.

She holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in economics from Ohio State University.

One of the world’s leading scientists, Prof. Dennis G. Whyte, Director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Plasma Science and Fusion Center, and member of the American Physical Society, is coming to Turkey for an event hosted by Sabancı University Istanbul International Center for Energy and Climate (IICEC), to explain the latest developments in fusion technology and the success factors of the technology they have developed.

Organized by Sabancı University IICEC, the seminar on “Accelerating Fusion Energy and Innovation”, which will be delivered by Prof. Dennis G. Whyte, will take place on Friday, October 14, 2022 at the Seed in the Sakıp Sabancı Museum.

IICEC Seminar: “Accelerating Fusion Energy and Innovation”

Date:   14 October 2022, Friday

Time:   10.00 - 11.00 - Registration

11.00 - 12.00 - Seminar

12.00 - 12.15 – Q&A

Place: The Seed, Sakıp Sabancı Museum, Emirgan
Sakıp Sabancı Cd. No:42, Sarıyer / Istanbul

Aydın Aysu, graduate of Sabancı University Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences Microelectronics undergraduate program in 2008, and of Electronics Engineering graduate program in 2010, received the Research Scholar Program (RSP) award given by Google.Aydın Aysu, one of the 6 researchers who won the RSP award in the field of cybersecurity, will investigate cybersecurity problems in Google's devices running artificial intelligence. Within the scope of the award, it is aimed to detect information leakage from errors that may occur in the hardware of the devices or to predict and repair, at an early stage, incorrect operations that may occur.

Sabancı University Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Economics Program 2010 graduate Seda Peksevim's doctoral project was awarded the best doctoral research project by the Investments & Wealth Institute.

Seda Peksevim, who graduated from Sabancı University Economics program in 2010, is doing her PhD in Finance at Boğaziçi University. The study entitled 'Are Pension Funds Liquidity Providers? Evidence from EM Countries' prepared by Peksevim was selected the best doctoral research project by the Investments & Wealth Institute. The article which will be prepared as a result of the project will also be published in the Journal of Investment & Consulting.

Stating that Sabancı University made significant contributions to her career, Seda Peksevim said: “I think the infrastructure provided by the Sabancı University Economics department was very important for me to receive this award. I can see that the skills I have gained in the economics department, especially in the field of data science, encourage me to examine research topics in finance with different methodologies. In this context, I would like to thank all my professors in the Department of Economics. I consider this award a result of my passion for academia thanks to them. I am also happy to win this award on behalf of Turkey from an institution such as the Investments & Wealth Institute.”

Sabancı Business School Faculty Member Raha Akhavan succeeded in swimming in the 16-km-long Strait of Gibraltar, located between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic Ocean, in 5 hours and 46 minutes.

Raha Akhavan, who has significant achievements in swimming, completed the second course of the Oceans Seven, which is considered the most difficult sea crossing in the world. Akhavan swam the Strait of Gibraltar on September 24, 2022, becoming the first Iranian woman to do it.

Stating that they swam on a difficult course, Raha Akhavan said, “Despite the shorter distance, there were very strong winds and currents in the strait that pushed the swimmers into the Mediterranean and prevented them from landing in Morocco. For this reason, the swimmers were asked to speed at least 3 km per hour and to complete the course in a maximum of 6 hours. I completed the course by swimming for 5 hours and 46 minutes.”

You can read the interview with Raha Akhavan, who managed to swim for 15 hours last year across the Catalina Channel in the USA, known as "the Swimmers' Mount Everest", in which we talked about many subjects from her passion for swimming to her goals from this link.

Moderated by Sabancı University Graduate Emre Başkan, the night was attended by Güler Sabancı, Founding Chair of Sabancı University Board of Trustees, and Prof. Dr. Yusuf Leblebici, President of Sabancı University, in addition to managers of Sabancı Holding Group companies, leading representatives of the business world, Sabancı University alumni, scholarship students, and donors.

The biggest surprise of the night, which was held with the theme of "Make a Promise for the Future", was the small sculptures made of sound waves of the promises made by university students for the future according to the theme. Malhun Tosun, an undergraduate student in the Industrial Engineering Program of the Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences, presented the first of the sculptures on display throughout the night to Güler Sabancı, Founding Chair of Sabancı University Board of Trustees. The sculpture included the sound waves of Malhun's promise for the future, which was "I will prevent the food crisis that may occur in the future by specializing in the field of agricultural economics".

Delivering a speech at the event, Güler Sabancı, Founding Chair of Sabancı University Board of Trustees, said the following:

“Today, there are among us those who graduated from our university and hold important positions in very important companies. This journey is one that is going well. This success is crowned with your achievements. But if we walk together, if you do not forget this place, if you follow this university, make a promise, and give support to young people, we will be stronger. The most asked question in life is which school you graduated from. That brand grows with you. The level that our school has attained in 23 years is thanks to you”.

“You picked the champions!”

On the night, Güler Sabancı also shared a memory she had when Sabancı University was founded in 1999: “When we started our education in 1999, we were visiting the university with our International Board of Overseers Member Chad Holliday. The campus was not completely finished, we had 250 students. He chatted with them. He said that we picked the champions and that we should follow these students and the future well, and that these children have the power to make a change wherever they go. Now is the time for our graduates to follow their universities.”

Güler Sabancı continued as follows: “We set out to establish a world university. You all work in world companies. The greatest wish of the late Sakıp Bey was that our graduates 'be successful wherever they go in the world'. At the point to which the world has come today, we all see how important this is. Now we are paving the way for our young people together by saying “Make a Promise for the Future”.

“More than 55 percent of our students at our university have scholarships”

In his speech, Sabancı University President Prof. Dr. Yusuf Leblebici said: “Currently, there are over 5300 students at our university. 80% of our students are undergraduate and 20% are graduate and doctoral students. This year, according to the results of the Higher Education Institutions Exam, we have included 790 very bright young people, including the student ranking 1st in the exam, among these students. The number of students we received from the first 1000 was 140. We have become the university with the highest score in Turkey in terms of the minimum scores required for admission to faculties. 36 percent of our undergraduate students are accepted as scholarship students as they start our university. This rate further increases to 55 percent with the contribution of need and success scholarships. In other words, more than 55 percent of our students are scholarship students.”

Stating that they are among the universities with the highest number of projects and the highest project budget in Turkey in the field of research, Leblebici said, “We are not content with just being the best university in Turkey anymore, we are continuing our efforts to become one of the leading research universities in the world. We aim to reach more successful and needy young people in our 'Make a Promise for the Future' scholarship program, which is inspired by the promises made by our young people to solve problems for a stronger future and a better world”.

At the “Make a Promise for the Future” event, IRG Corporation Founding Partner Giovanna Guzman, Sabancı University Graduate Syed Hunain Imran, Sculptor Leyla Aktaş Rosenberger, Bulgurcu Foundation Founder Ayşen Bulgurcu, and Sabancı University Graduate Selin Kaya, who are among the Sabancı University scholarship fund donors, each delivered a speech.