Abdollah Ahmadpour
Abdollah was born in 1998 in Bandarabbas, Iran. He graduated from Isfahan University of Technology with a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering in Winter 2021. During his undergraduate studies, he had been TA in solid mechanics courses. He also completed his internship in M&MoCS (Mathematics and Mechanics of Complex Systems), Italy, focusing on the numerical simulation of metamaterials and pantographic sheets using COMSOL Multiphysics. He worked on the simulation of acoustic metamaterials with the purpose of sound cloaking as his bachelor’s thesis, and he was also collaborating with the Taşoğlu lab, focusing on fluid flow simulations in microscale applications. He joined Taşoğlu lab as an MSc student in Fall 2021, and his current research interest is optimization design of metamaterials and MEMS in biomedical applications.
Ahmed Choukri Abdullah
Ahmed Choukri Abdullah joined Koç University as a graduate student in Fall 2022 under the supervision of Assoc. Prof. Savas Tasoglu. He completed his B.Sc. degree at Istanbul Bilgi University in Mechanical Engineering department with a minor degree in Electrical & Electronics Engineering, ranked first among his batch (2022). His senior thesis titled “Design and Optimization of PEM Fuel Cell for Transportation Applications” was awarded as one of the best senior projects and was funded by TÜBITAK. His interest revolves around computational analysis, modeling, analysis, and control of dynamics system, fluid mechanics, medical devices.
Munzer Alseed
Munzer was born in 1992 in Homs, Syria. He holds a M.Sc. degree in biomedical engineering from Boğaziçi University, where he worked on anthropomorphic robotic prosthetics. During his master’s study he received a scholarship from TÜBİTAK in collaboration with Marmara University, where he developed a portable EMG device and a VR environment for monitoring and assisting robotic hippotherapy sessions. Alseed is currently pursuing his Ph.D. degree at Boğaziçi University since 2020 as a member of Taşoğlu lab, working on the development of a low-cost point-of-care platform for the diagnosis of MDR-TB among Syrian refugees in Türkiye, along with other side projects. His current research interests include medical robotics, machine learning and AI, medical diagnostic and monitoring devices, biomedical image and signal processing, and modelling of biological systems.
Sara Asghari
Sara completed her bachelor’s degree in Pure Chemistry at Tabriz University in 2019. She started her master’s degree at Hacettepe University in the Department of Bioengineering in 2020. During her master’s studies, Sara investigated the effect of nanoclay and various boron compounds on the characteristic properties of hybrid composites and the impact of utilized chemicals on the wound-healing process. She joined the Biomedical Science and Engineering Department of Koç University immediately after graduation to pursue her studies with a PhD degree. Her research interests involve lab-on-a-chip technologies, nano-carriers, and smart delivery systems. She is currently working on the fabrication of novel microneedles for therapeutic applications.
Tuğrul Birtek
Tugrul Birtek received his BS degree in Mechanical Engineering from Istanbul Technical University (ITU) in 2019. He worked as an undergraduate researcher at the ITU Nano/MEMS Research Center from 2017 to 2019 within the scope of his senior design project. During this period, he experimentally studied Lab-on-Chip systems, specifically tumor cell separation in microfluidic chips. In 2019, he joined a masters programme on Biomedical Sciences and Engineering at the Koc University. During his first year at the Koc University, he studied interferometric microscopy of biological particles at Optical Microsystems Laboratory (OML). He joined Tasoglu Lab as a PhD student in 2020. His research interests are Microfluidics, MEMS and their applications in Biology.
Ahmet Agah Karagöz
Agah graduated from Istanbul Technical University with a double major in Manufacturing Engineering and Computer Science. He co-founded a Start-UP called Mornero, which received two investments that leads in a million TL annual income. After working in many Start-UP companies and EU-HORIZON projects, where he developed and used deep learning algorithms for solving problems in the field of mechanics, he joined Koç University as a Biomedical Engineering Ph.D. student to work on deep learning and computer vision applications for the biomedical domain such as 3D printers, point-of-care systems, microneedles, and magnetic levitation.
Misagh Rezapour Sarabi
Misagh was born in Tabriz, Iran and completed his BSc in Polymer Engineering at the University of Tehran from 2015 to 2019 with his BSc thesis being about tribology and its relation to rheology. Also he published the book titled “Rheology of Polymers” upon graduating from BSc. After, Misagh spent about 9 months developing master batch formulas and investigating on vulcanized thermoplastic elastomers at Payon Polymer Company in Tehran. In 2020, he started to follow his research interests through his PhD study at the Koç University. His PhD research area mainly contributes to novel healthcare systems, with specialization in microneedles, microrobots, organ-on-chip, and 3D printing technologies. He is inspired to introduce new biomedical applications throughout his research.
Sara Soltanabadi
Sara Soltanabadi completed her bachelor’s in Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Tehran in September 2022. She worked on the 3D printing of biomaterials for the use of Tissue Engineering for her B.Sc. thesis. She joined the Digital Biotechnology lab in February 2023 as a Ph.D. student in Mechanical Engineering at Koç University.
Cansu Söylemez
Cansu received her bachelor’s degree from the Department of Bioengineering at Yıldız Technical University in 2017. After that, she pursued a master’s degree in Bioengineering at İzmir Institute of Technology where she worked on gold nanoparticle-based biosensor chips and surface functionalization in diagnostics. Currently, she is a PhD Student of Biomedical Sciences and Engineering. She joined Taşoğlu Lab as a PhD student in Spring 2021. Her research interests are paper-based microfluidics and point-of-care systems for medical diagnostics.
Begüm Kübra Tokyay
Begüm is a PhD student in the Department of Biomedical Science and Engineering at the Koç University. She got her bachelor’s degree in Biomedical Engineering from Başkent University, Ankara. After graduating from Başkent University, she received her MSc. degree in Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN) Defence at Gebze Technical University. During her studies, she focused on lateral flow biosensors to detect the water pathogen at TÜBİTAK Marmara Research Center. She also worked on TURKOVAC, being the first COVID-19 vaccine developed in Türkiye. She joined Taşoğlu Lab in October 2021. Her doctoral research focuses on lateral flow assays for biomedical applications.
Merve Üstün
Merve joined Dr. Tasoglu’s Lab as a graduate student in Spring 2020 with her PhD study in Biomedical Sciences & Engineering at Koc University, researching about glioma cancer modeling. She obtained her BSc from Gebze Institute of Technology, Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics in 2014. She received her MSc degree from Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Gebze Technical University in 2017, where she investigated the role of a transcription factor related to axonal outgrowth on neural differentiation in Molecular Neurobiology Lab. She is also currently working as a Research & Development Engineer in Zetamatrix, Inc.