Academic Management

Yusuf Leblebici received the BSc and MSc degrees in electrical engineering from Istanbul Technical University, Istanbul, Turkey, in 1984 and 1986, respectively, and the PhD degree in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), IL, USA, in 1990. Between 1991 and 2002, he worked as a faculty member at UIUC, at Istanbul Technical University, at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) and at Sabancı University. During his appointment at Sabancı University from 1999 to 2002, he served as the Microelectronics Program Coordinator, responsible for establishing and developing the microelectronics diploma program curriculum and the associated teaching laboratories.

In 2002, Yusuf Leblebici became a Chair Professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL) and Director of the Microelectronic Systems Laboratory which he led for more than 16 years. In November 2018, he was appointed as President of Sabancı University. His research interests include design of high-speed CMOS digital and mixed-signal integrated circuits, computer-aided design of VLSI systems, intelligent sensor interfaces, modeling and simulation of semiconductor devices, and VLSI reliability analysis. So far, he has graduated 58 PhD students and more than 100 MSc students. He is the coauthor of nine books (including two internationally acclaimed textbooks), as well as more than 350 scientific articles published in various journals and conferences. His textbook entitled “CMOS Digital Integrated Circuits: Analysis and Design" which was first published by McGraw Hill in 1995 has resulted in 4 consecutive editions through the years, with more than 250,000 copies printed worldwide, and translated into 3 languages including Chinese.

Yusuf Leblebici has been the recipient of the prestigious Young Scientist Award of the Turkish Scientific and Technological Research Council in 1995, and the "Joseph S. Satin Distinguished Fellow Award" in 1999. He was elected as an IEEE Fellow in 2009, and as a Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE Circuits and Systems Society for 2010–2011. In 2020, Yusuf Leblebici has received the Electrical and Computer Engineering Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), and in 2023, he was elected as a Member of Academia Europaea.
 

Prof. Cem Güneri is the Vice President for Education at Sabancı University. He has been a faculty member at the Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences of Sabancı University since 2001. Together with the founding faculty members of the University, he has been actively involved in developing undergraduate courses, minor and graduate programs in Mathematics. He was the Vice Dean of the Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences between 2012 and 2018, during which he took responsibilities related to educational affairs of the Faculty, including accreditation of the Faculty Programs.

Cem Güneri received his BSc degree from the Middle East Technical University and PhD degree from Louisiana State University, both in Mathematics. His research areas can be summarized as finite fields and curves defined over them, algebraic coding theory and certain cryptographic applications. He was an Executive Board Member of the Turkish Mathematical Society between 2010 and 2018. He is a member of Turkish Mathematical Society, American Mathematical Society and the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics.

Professor Dr. Mehmet Yıldız is the Vice President for Research and Development at Sabancı University. Born in Diyarbakır in 1972, and received his primary, secondary and high school education in Ereğli/Zonguldak, Turkey, he completed his undergraduate education in 1996 with the first rank in Metallurgical and Materials Engineering Department at Yıldız Technical University and received his MSc. degree also from Metallurgical and Materials Engineering department at Istanbul Technical University in 2000. Between 1996-2000, he worked in two different companies as an R&D engineer and a project manager in the fields of welding and non-destructive testing. He obtained his Ph.D. degree in 2005 from Mechanical Engineering Department at the University of Victoria, BC, Canada in the fields of computational fluid dynamics and semiconductor single crystal growth and then worked as a research associate and lecturer in the same department until 2007.

In 2007, he joined Sabancı University, Faculty of Engineering Natural Sciences as a faculty member in Materials Science and Engineering Program and since 2013, has been leading the effort of establishing Sabancı University-Integrated Manufacturing Technologies Research and Application Center and its industrial leg, Composite Technologies Center of Excellence with Kordsa. Currently, he is serving as the founding director of these centers, and a deputy Chairperson in the board of directors of Kordsa Company. He sits in the R&D advisory board of Kastamonu Entegre. He contributed to the establishment of Manufacturing Engineering graduate program at Sabancı University.

Dr. Yıldız's areas of expertise include advanced composite materials, nanocomposites, structural health monitoring and computational mechanics. He published more than 85 SCI indexed high impact factor journals, 8 book chapters, prepared and presented over 135 conference papers and graduated more than 28 MSc. and Ph.D. students.

He completed his undergraduate studies in the Department of Physics at Ankara University in 1998. He obtained his master's and doctoral degrees from the University of Leipzig in Germany in 2001 and 2006, respectively. Following his doctorate, he worked as a researcher at TU Darmstadt; subsequently, he established his own research group at the University of Freiburg, where he continued his work and completed his habilitation in 2017. In 2018, he returned to Türkiye under the TÜBİTAK 2232 International Leading Researchers Program to join Sabancı University, where he attained the rank of professor in 2023.

His research focuses on experimental physics, materials science, and energy materials; he conducts studies specifically in the fields of electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy, defects in materials and structure-property relationships, energy storage systems, and supercapacitors. Having participated in numerous national and international research projects, Erdem collaborates with universities and research centers across various countries. He serves as an editor for international scientific journals and has been a permanent member of the Energy Permanent Monitoring Panel (PMP) within the Erice International Seminars on Planetary Emergencies since 2025. He also conducted research as a Mercator Fellow at TU Darmstadt during the 2024–2026 period.

He has held various academic and administrative roles at Sabancı University, including Director of the EFSUN Center of Excellence and Director of the Graduate School of Engineering and Natural Sciences. As of September 1, 2026, he serves as the Dean of the Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences.

Senem Aydın-Düzgit is the Director of Istanbul Policy Center and a Professor of International Relations at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Sabancı University. Additionally, she is a Non-resident Fellow at the Institute for European Policymaking at Bocconi University. In 2023–2024, Aydın-Düzgit was a Richard von Weizsäcker Fellow at the Robert Bosch Academy in Berlin, and in 2024–2025, she served as the Pierre Keller Visiting Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School.
Her research examines topics such as identity, history, and discourse in the study of international politics, with an empirical focus on European and Turkish foreign policies. In her recent work, she examines the nexus between domestic and foreign policy of middle powers within an evolving international order. Moreover, Aydın-Düzgit has conducted and published research on international democracy support in the context of both the European Union’s enlargement process and Turkish foreign policy. She holds a Ph.D. from Vrije Universiteit Brussels, an MSc from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and a BA from Boğaziçi University.
Her articles have been published in leading journals in the fields of European politics and international relations, including the European Journal of International Relations, Journal of Common Market Studies, Journal of Democracy, International Affairs, Third World Quarterly, and West European Politics. She is the author of Turkey and the European Union (with Nathalie Tocci) (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015) and Constructions of European Identity (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012; Turkish edition, 2015). 
Aydın-Düzgit is a member of the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), a fellow of the Young Academy of Europe (YAE), a member of the Carnegie Rising Democracies Network, and serves on the Academic Advisory Board of the Institut für Europäische Politik. She is also the co- editor of the Future of Europe book series (Springer) and serves on the editorial boards of Journal of European Integration, Journal of Language and Politics, South European Society and Politics, and New Perspectives on Turkey. In 2014, she was awarded the Young Scientist Award by the Science Academy of Turkey (BAGEP).
 

Prof. Dr. Ayşegül Toker graduated from the Department of Industrial Engineering at Middle East Technical University in 1985. She received her master's degree in Industrial Engineering in 1988 and her Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering in 1994, both from Middle East Technical University as well. She worked as a researcher at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University from 1995 to 1996.

Since starting as a faculty member in the Department of Management at Boğaziçi University in 1997, Prof. Ayşegül Toker has been conducting research on the Internet and new technologies. She focuses on the adoption of new technologies by consumers and businesses. Keeping abreast of developments in information and communication technologies, Prof. Toker incorporates new topics in her research areas. She has published numerous respected academic journal articles, national and international conference papers, books, and book chapters on digital customer interactions, digital marketing, social media, location-based marketing, mobile marketing, virtual communities, customer relationship management, and e-commerce. She is one of the authors of the book "Mobile Marketing: Fundamentals and Strategy," published by McGraw Hill in 2011.

In addition to her academic work, Prof. Toker served as the Coordinator of the Social Media Team from 2011 to 2013, managing the university's presence and strategy on all social media platforms. She assumed the position of Director of the Boğaziçi University Entrepreneurship Center between 2016 and 2018, where she developed projects to enhance the entrepreneurship ecosystem and culture. Prof. Ayşegül Toker concurrently held the positions of Budget and Strategy Advisor to the Rector and Chair of the Department of Management from 2008 to 2012 and served as the Dean of the Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences at Boğaziçi University from 2012 to 2021. In 2023, she joined Sabancı Business School as a faculty member. Prof. Toker, who is the Turkey Coordinator of the GLOBE 2020 - Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness research project, has become particularly prominent for her academic and business-focused studies on entrepreneurship, digital marketing, digital transformation, social media, influencers, personal branding, and leadership.

Aykut Gümüşlüoğlu, who graduated from Istanbul University, Faculty of Economics, Department of Economics in 1997, started his professional life in 1998 at the Board of Accountants of the Ministry of Finance and held managerial positions at various levels in state institutions. Between 2008 and 2010, he completed his master's degree in Policy Economics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In 2011, he moved to the private sector and joined the Anadolu Group. From 2011 to 2018, he served as Assistant Audit Coordinator at Anadolu Endüstri Holding, and from 2018 to 2023, as Audit Coordinator at AG Anadolu Grubu Holding A.Ş. From 2023 to 2026, he served as Head of Internal Audit at Togg, and in 2026, he was appointed Audit Director at Sabancı Holding. He also serves as a member of the Board of Directors of the Turkish Institute of Internal Auditors from 2026 onwards.

Aykut Gümüşlüoğlu, who possesses significant expertise in finance, taxation, internal auditing, risk management, and corporate governance through his experience in both the public and private sectors, has been appointed as the Secretary General of Sabancı University, effective July 1, 2026.