Biography

I am an Assistant Professor with the Electrical and Electronics Engineering Department at Middle East Technical University, Turkey. I am also an Affiliated Faculty Member with the Institute of Applied Mathematics at Middle East Technical University (METU), Turkey. I am the founder and director of the Reliable and Efficient INformation Systems (REINS) Group at METU. I am interested in questions in coding/information theory that are fundamental to opportunities created by the current, unparalleled access to data and computing. I received the Bachelor and M.S. degrees in Electronics and Communications Engineering from Cairo University, Egypt, in 2006 and 2011, respectively. I received the Ph.D. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in 2018. I was a Postdoctoral Associate with the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at Duke University between 2018 and 2021. I worked with Mentor Graphics Corporation (currently, Siemens EDA) between 2006 and 2014. I worked as an Error-Correction Coding Architect with Intel Corporation in the summer of 2015 and the summer of 2017.

I won the 2018-2019 Distinguished Ph.D. Dissertation Award in Signals and Systems from the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at UCLA. My Bachelor group graduation project won the first prize at the 2006 IEEE Egyptian Engineering Day (EED). I am a recipient of the Best Paper Award from the 2015 IEEE Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM), Selected Areas in Communications, Data Storage Track. I won the 2017-2018 Dissertation Year Fellowship (DYF) at UCLA. I won the 2016-2017 Electrical Engineering Henry Samueli Excellence in Teaching Award for teaching Probability and Statistics at UCLA. I am a recipient of the Memorable Paper Award from the 2018 Non-Volatile Memories Workshop (NVMW) in the area of devices, coding, and information theory. I am a recipient of the 2018-2019 Best Student Paper Award from the IEEE Data Storage Technical Committee (DSTC). I have been recently awarded the TÜBİTAK 2232-B International Fellowship for Early Stage Researchers in 2022.

My hobbies include writing poems, reading in different fields, calligraphy, and practicing/watching sports.