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.

Erkay Savaş received the BS (1990) and MS (1994) degrees in electrical engineering from the Electronics and Communications Engineering Department at Istanbul Technical University. He completed the PhD degree in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) at Oregon State University in June 2000. He had worked for various companies and research institutions before he joined Sabanci University in 2002. His research interests include applied cryptography, data and communication security, privacy in biometrics, security and privacy in data mining applications, embedded systems security, and distributed systems. He is a member of IEEE, ACM, the IEEE Computer Society, and the International Association of Cryptologic Research (IACR).

Meltem Müftüler-Baç is a Professor of International Relations and Jean Monnet chair ad personam at Sabanci University, Istanbul, Turkey. She received her B.A in Political Science from Boğazici University in 1988, MA and Ph.D. in Political Science and International Relations from Temple University, USA in 1989 and 1992, respectively. She became assistant professor in 1992, associate professor in 1996 and professor in 2005. Before joining Sabancı University in February 2002, she taught at Bilkent University from 1992 to February 2002 as Assistant and Associate Professor, where she was also the Vice Dean of the Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences at Bilkent University between 2000 and 2002. She worked previously at Temple University (USA), Bilkent University (Turkey), and was a Visiting professor at the University of Chicago, and an Affiliate Professor at University of Stockholm (2013-2016), a Visiting Scholar and Affiliate Faculty at the Perry World House, University of Pennsylvania (2019-2020). At Sabanci University, Professor Müftüler-Baç coordinated the Social and Political Studies undergraduate program from 2002 to 2011, established the masters program in European Studies and coordinated it from 2004 to 2014, and established and coordinated the BA program in International Studies from 2011 to 2014. Prof. Müftüler-Baç has authored multiple academic books, Turkey's Relations with a Changing Europe published by the Manchester University Press in 1997, Divergent Pathways: Turkey and the European Union published by Barbara Budrich in 2016, and co-edited Turkey and the European Union Relations: Dilemmas, Opportunities and Constraints, with Yannis Stivachtis, Lexington books in 2008, and Parliamentary Cooperation and Diplomacy in EU External Relations with Jan Wouters and Kolja Raube, in 2019. Her publications appeared in Journal of European Public Policy, Middle Eastern Studies, East European Qaurterly, Journal of European Integration, South East European Politics and Society, Security Dialogue, International Studies Perspectives, Turkish Studies, Women’s Studies International Forum, West European Politics, International Journal, Journal of Democracy, Journal of Language and Politics, Asia-Europe Journal, Journal of Contemporary European Studies, European Journal of Women’s Studies, East European Politics. Her work has been supported by the EU’s research programs consistently. She participated in the F6 project ‘Reconstituting Democracy in Europe’ from 2006 to 2012, FP7 project ‘TRANSWORLD’ for 2012-2015, and FP7 project ‘MAXCAP’ for 2013-2016. She is participating currently in two H2020 projects; InDivEU-Integrating Diversity in the EU 2019-2022, and MAGYC- Migration and Asylum Governance 2018-2022. In 2011, she received a grant for a Jean Monnet Center of Excellence from the European Commission. Her work is widely cited in Turkey-European Union relations, on EU enlargement, Turkish foreign policy and Turkish politics. Prof. Müftüler-Baç holds two prestigious awards from the Turkish Academy of Sciences: Young Social Scientist Investigator Award in 2002 and Distinguished Young Scientist Award in 2003. She was awarded with the Jean Monnet Professor ad personam title from the European Commission in 2004. Her research and academic outputs could be reached at her website: http://myweb.sabanciuniv.edu/muftuler, ResearchGate and her Google Scholar page.

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.

Erkan Şahinler graduated from Boğaziçi University, Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, Department of Business Administration, and began his professional career in external audit in 1990. From 1993 onwards, he worked for companies within Sabancı Holding, serving as Finance Director (CFO) at Marsa Kraft Foods International (1993-2005) and Gıdasa (2005-2008). After serving as Acting General Manager at Exsa UK in 2008, he joined Aksigorta that same year as Deputy General Manager responsible for Finance, and in 2016 he also assumed responsibility for Claims and Operations in addition to Finance. From 2017 to 2021, he served as Deputy General Manager responsible for Finance at AvivaSA (Agesa), and from 2021 to 2025, he held the position of Group Financial Control Director at Sabancı Holding. In addition to his role at Sabancı Holding, Erkan Şahinler has served on the Boards of Directors of Agesa, Aksigorta, Teknosa, and Temsa İş Makinaları. During the same period, he also held the position of General Manager at Exsa, Tursa, and AEO, while simultaneously serving on their Boards of Directors. Erkan Şahinler has held a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) certificate since 1994 and has served on various TSB (Turkish Insurance Association) Review and Research Committees. Serving as the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Sabancı University from March 1, 2025, Erkan Şahinler has been appointed as the Deputy Secretary General of Sabancı University from February 13, 2026.