22/07/2026
Assoc. Prof. Öznur Taştan, a faculty member at Sabancı University’s Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences, has been elected to the Advanced Courses Committee of the Federation of European Biochemical Societies (FEBS).
The election was held during the 66th FEBS Council Meeting on July 8, 2026. Öznur Taştan will begin her four-year term on January 1, 2027.
The FEBS Advanced Courses Committee is responsible for supporting and coordinating advanced scientific courses, workshops, and educational activities in biochemistry and the molecular life sciences. Drawing on her expertise in artificial intelligence and computational biology, Taştan will contribute to the committee’s activities in biocomputation.
About Öznur Taştan
Dr. Öznur Taştan is an Associate Professor at Sabancı University’s Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences, where she is affiliated with the Computer Science and Engineering and Molecular Biology, Genetics and Bioengineering programs. She is also a member of Sabancı University’s Center of Excellence in Data Analytics (VERİM).
Dr. Taştan received her MSc and PhD degrees from the Language Technologies Institute at Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Computer Science in 2007 and 2011, respectively. Before joining Sabancı University in 2017, she was a faculty member in the Department of Computer Engineering at Bilkent University and a postdoctoral researcher at Microsoft Research New England in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Her research focuses on artificial intelligence and machine learning methods for computational biology and biomedicine. She is a recipient of the Science Academy’s Young Scientists Award Program (BAGEP), the UNESCO–L’Oréal National Fellowship for Young Women in Life Sciences, and the METU Prof. Mustafa Parlar Foundation Research Incentive Award.
Dr. Taştan has served on the organizing and program committees of leading international conferences, including RECOMB, ISMB and ACML. She has also delivered keynote and invited talks at international conferences and workshops, including ISMB and RECOMB Computational Cancer Biology. Since 2022, she has served as co-chair of Machine Learning in Computational and Systems Biology (MLCSB) group. In this role, she oversees the selection of track chairs for the MLCSB at ISMB conference, works with them throughout the year to develop the scientific program.
