15/06/2016
Dr. Gürsel Sönmez Resarch Award Committee has carefully evaluated the applications of 12 candidates, considering their research outcomes and references, as well as the nature of each discipline and the degree awarded (M.S/Ph.D) at the Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences in Sabancı University.
The Committee nominates Nima Tofighi, Jamal Seyyed Monfared Zanjani and Beyza Vuruşaner for the award, due to their outstanding contributions in their fields as summarized below. We recommend equal distribution of the award among all the nominees.
Beyza Vuruşaner's work during her Ph. D. has contributed significantly to the advancement of oxidative stress signaling and reactive oxygen control in cells. Lipid oxidation is a veryimportant phenomenon that has implications in devlopment of serious human diseases including cancer, Alzheimer's disease and atherosclerosis. Beyza has a strong scientific track record of high-quality publications in international peer-reviewed high impact journals. In the first year of her PhD studies, she published a review article in an international, interdisciplinary journal and the article is ranked 6th in the list of the most downloaded articles of the journal. In addition, it was cited more than 100 times including Cell journal.
Two research articles, which are directly related with her PhD thesis were published in highly prestigious peer-reviewed journals. In the molecular biology/molecular medicine field, 90-95% of the published work is produced by the first author. She deserves all the credit for her papers.
Nima Tofighi, during his PhD research in Sabanci University, has made noteworthy contributions to numerical solutions of complex viscoelastic flow problems with smooth particle hydrodynamics (SPH) method. In particular, he developed a general incompressible approach to overcome the accuracy issues of the SPH methods efficiently and applied this approach successfully to fluid-solid interactions of Newtonian and non-Newtonian fluids, electro hydrodynamics, multiphase flows and the motion of rigid bodies in stationary fluids under external forces such as the gravity and the electric field. He demonstrated his solid academic background, intellectual capacity and research abilities in developing solution strategies for complex problems, carrying out tedious steps for the solution of the problems and documenting his contributions with well-written manuscripts. As an outcome of the productivity of his research efforts, he prepared and contributed to eleven articles (five already published) in leading scientific journals, and nineteen articles in refereed international conference proceedings.
Jamal Seyyed Monfared Zanjani , while pursuing his Ph.D. degree in Materials Science and Engineering, worked in the field of composite material development and structural health monitoring. During his stay at Sabancı University, he actively conducted research in synthesis and characterization of different carbon based nano-materials and their effect in different polymeric matrices that are used in composites. He made significant contribution to the literature regarding nano-engineered design and manufacturing of high-performance epoxy matrix composites with carbon fiber/selectively integrated graphene as multi-scale reinforcements. Following this work, he successfully developed a method to design and fabricate hollow and filled graphene-based polymeric spheres via core-shell electrospraying. In the course of these activities Jamal developed post processing codes and computer protocols to analyze the results of sophisticated experimental data and authored or coauthored 8 journal publications in four years at Sabancı University.
2015-2016 Dr. Gürsel Sönmez Resarch Award Committee
Özgür Gürbüz (coord.)
Semih Onur Sezer
Deniz Sezer
Serhat Yeşilyurt
Burç Mısırlıoğlu
Fevzi Cebeci
Nilay Noyan
Selim Balcısoy
Selim Çetiner
