Biography

I am a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Southern California (USC) working with Salman Avestimehr. My research interests are in the areas of machine learning, distributed computation, wireless communications, networks, and information theory. My current research focus is on secure, trustworthy, and verifiable federated learning, privacy-preserving machine learning, responsible data economics and valuation for machine learning and analytics, blockchain systems, and timely information exchange in distributed systems. In my research, I utilize tools and techniques from optimization, machine learning, statistics, applied cryptography, and information and coding theories.

I received my Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Maryland (UMD), College Park, MD, USA in 2021 under the supervision of Sennur Ulukus. During my doctoral studies, I worked on timely information delivery in large networks, distributed computation and machine learning. Prior to joining UMD, I received my B.S. degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from Bilkent University, Turkey in 2016.

I have been fortunate to collaborate with Deniz Gunduz (Imperial College London), Songze Li (Southeast University), Hessam Mahdavifar (University of Michigan), Yupeng Zhang (UIUC), and Alkan Soysal (Virginia Tech) during my doctoral and postdoctoral studies.

My CV can be found here, last updated on October 2023.

Education

• Ph.D. student in Electrical and Computer Engineering
  University of Maryland, College Park, Aug 2016 to Dec 21
  Advisor: Sennur Ulukus
  Thesis: Age of Information in Large Networks, Distributed Computation and Learning

• B.S in Electrical and Electronics Engineering
  Bilkent University, Sep 2011 to Jan 2016

Awards and Honors

• George Harhalakis Outstanding Graduate Student Award, Institute of Systems Research, University of Maryland, Sep 2021.

• Best Student Paper Award - First Place, IEEE International Workshop on Signal Processing Advances in Wireless Communications, Sep 2021.

• IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC) Student Grant, Awarded by NSF, May 2021.

• Best Student Paper Award - Second Place, 54th Asilomar Conference on Signals, Systems, and Computers, Nov 2020.

• Future Faculty Program Fellowship, University of Maryland, Jan 2020 - Dec 2021.

• Jacob K. Goldhaber Travel Grant, University of Maryland, Dec 2019.

• Best Student Paper Award - Finalist, 53rd Asilomar Conference on Signals, Systems, and Computers, Nov 2019.

• Clark School of Engineering Distinguished Graduate Fellowship, University of Maryland, Aug 2016 to Aug 2017.

• Research Excellence Award, Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Bilkent University, May 2016.

• Bilkent University Undergraduate Fellowship, Sep 2011 to Jun 2016.

Service