TUBITAK awards acclaimed Turkish scientists

Highly acclaimed Turkish scientists were awarded by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK). Highly acclaimed Turkish scientists were awarded by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) in Ankara on Thursday. The ceremony was held at the Cankaya Palace under the auspices of the Turkish President Abdullah Gul.Ozlem Keskin Ozkaya of Koc University was awarded in the engineering category, Hasan Tayfun Ozcelik of Bilkent University was awarded in the category of hygiology, and Sakir Ziya Onis of Koc University was awarded in the social sciences category. A. Galip Ulsoy of Michigan University, who was bestowed with the TUBITAK special award, could not attend the ceremony. Tayfun Ozcelik, a highly acclaimed human geneticist and one of the 22 scientists for his discovery of the SNRPN gene in the Prader-Willi syndrome critical region, first published in Nature Genetics in 1992, has been given a place on Stanford University's "Discovery Walk." "Discovery Walk" is an outdoor art installation that commemorates major advances in medical science over the last 150 years and embraces history through stories of medical research. He is concentrated on the consanguinity-based dissection of complex phenotypes in humans, identified the genes associated with quadrupedal locomotion (Uner Tan syndrome) and childhood hematological malignancies, and described the link between X-chromosome inactivation and female predisposition to autoimmune disorders such as scleroderma, juvenile idiopathic arthritis and autoimmune thyroid disorders. Ozlem Keskin Ozkaya is known for her studies in cancer research. Her studies focus on finding the reason for cancer.  Sakir Ziya Onis, a political economy professor and head of the Center for Research on Globalization and Democratic Governance is known for his studies on the political economy of the globalization, crisis and democratization. Galip Ulsoy, advisor to the White House on engineering, specializes in the dynamic modeling, analysis, and control of mechanical systems; particularly manufacturing and automotive systems. His research work utilizes a combination of experimental, analytical, and numerical methods. He has made basic research contributions to the mechanics of axially moving elastic systems. He has also made significant research contributions to manufacturing systems (e.g., sawing, turning, milling, drilling, robotics), automotive systems (e.g., accessory drive belts, active suspensions, lateral control), and other engineering application areas (e.g., disk drives, mineral processing operations). He has developed several new courses in the areas of automatic control, automotive and manufacturing systems.