58 Notable alumni of
Bogazici University
Updated:
Bogazici University is 708th in the world, 144th in Asia, and 7th in Turkey by aggregated alumni prominence. Below is the list of 58 notable alumni from Bogazici University sorted by their wiki pages popularity. The directory includes famous graduates and former students along with research and academic staff.
-
Fahriye Evcen
- Occupations
- television actorfilm actor
- Biography
-
Fahriye Evcen Özçivit is a German-born Turkish actress and model. She is known for her roles as Necla Tekin in the TV series Yaprak Dökümü and as Feride in the TV series Çalıkuşu,both based on novels by Reşat Nuri Güntekin.
-
Ahmet Davutoğlu
- Occupations
- political scientistpoliticianwriterpedagogueeconomist
- Biography
-
Ahmet Davutoğlu is a Turkish academic, politician and former diplomat who served as the 26th Prime Minister of Turkey and Leader of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) from 2014 to 2016. He previously served as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2009 to 2014 and chief advisor to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan from 2003 to 2009. He was elected as an AKP Member of Parliament for Konya in the 2011 general election and was reelected as an MP in both the June and November 2015 general elections. He resigned as prime minister on 22 May 2016.
-
Tansu Çiller
- Enrolled in Bogazici University
- Studied economics
- Occupations
- university teacherpoliticianeconomistdiplomat
- Biography
-
Tansu Çiller is a Turkish academic, economist, and politician who served as the 22nd Prime Minister of Turkey from 1993 to 1996. She was Turkey's first and only female prime minister. As the leader of the True Path Party, she went on to concurrently serve as Deputy Prime Minister of Turkey and as Minister of Foreign Affairs between 1996 and 1997.
-
Cem Yılmaz
- Occupations
- writercartoonistcaricaturistactorhumorist
- Biography
-
Cem Yılmaz is a Turkish actor, stand-up comedian, musician, filmmaker, screenwriter, and cartoonist. He has four franchise film series G.O.R.A., Karakomik Fimler, Organize İşler, Vizontele. Also, He is best known for his films Yahşi Batı, Hokkabaz, İftarlık Gazoz, Av Mevsimi and has won three Sadri Alışık awards and Yeşilçam award for his roles. His international films are Russell Crowe's film "Water Diviner" and Ferzan Özpetek's film "Magnifica presenza".
-
Nuri Bilge Ceylan
- Occupations
- photographerscreenwriterfilm directoractorcamera operator
- Biography
-
Nuri Bilge Ceylan is a Turkish director, screenwriter, photographer and actor. His film Winter Sleep (2014) won the Palme d'Or at the 67th Cannes Film Festival, while six of his films have been selected as Turkey's submission for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film.
-
Murat Ülker
- Occupations
- entrepreneurbusinessperson
- Biography
-
Murat Ülker is a Turkish billionaire businessman, and the chairman of Yıldız Holding, the largest food company in the CEEMEA region (Central & Eastern Europe, Middle East, and Africa). Yıldız owns businesses including Godiva Chocolatier, pladis, and Sok.
-
Gülse Birsel
- Occupations
- presenteractorscreenwriterwriterjournalist
- Biography
-
Gülse Birsel is a Turkish actress, screenwriter and columnist. She is known for hit sitcom series, Avrupa Yakası, Yalan Dünya and hit film 7 Kocalı Hürmüz.
-
Teoman
- Occupations
- actorfilm actorsingerfilm directorfilm score composer
- Biography
-
Fazlı Teoman Yakupoğlu is a Turkish acoustic rock singer and songwriter. His biggest hits include Paramparça, Senden Önce Senden Sonra, 17 and Papatya. On Papatya, Turkish female rock singer Özlem Tekin features as backing vocals. Şebnem Ferah has also featured on a couple of Teoman's tracks.
-
Defne Samyeli
- Occupations
- television presenterjournalisttelevision actorsingercolumnist
- Biography
-
Defne Samyeli is a Turkish TV presenter, columnist, singer and actress.
-
Pelin Batu
- Occupations
- writeractor
- Biography
-
Pelin Batu is a Turkish author, actress, historian, and television personality.
-
Güler Sabancı
- Enrolled in Bogazici University
- Studied administration
- Occupations
- economistmanagerbusinesspersonentrepreneur
- Biography
-
Güler Sabancı is a Turkish businesswoman, a third-generation member of the Sabancı family, and the chairperson of the family-controlled Sabancı Holding, the second-largest industrial and financial conglomerate in Turkey. As of 2023, she was listed as the 77th most powerful woman in the world by Forbes, which first recognized her in 1999.
-
Nil Karaibrahimgil
- Occupations
- film actorcomposersongwritersinger
- Biography
-
Ferhan Nil Karaibrahimgil is a Turkish singer and songwriter, mostly noted for her distinct lyrics.
-
Saadet Aksoy
- Occupations
- actorfilm actor
- Biography
-
Saadet Işıl Aksoy is a Turkish actress, who received critical acclaim with her portrayal of Aska, a red-haired punk trumpet player in Italian actor-director Sergio Castellitto's film Twice Born, in which she co-starred with Penélope Cruz and Emile Hirsch. Christy Lemire described her as "the striking Saadet Aksoy" in her Twice Born review, and film critic David Rooney stated, "Saadet Aksoy brings a subdued fieriness to her scenes as a Bosnian woman" in The Hollywood Reporter. In his article on Variety, Boyd Van Hoeij wrote, "Turkish thesp Saadet Aksoy impresses in a supporting role as a spunky Yugoslav local" about her performance in Twice Born.
-
Zeynep Tüfekçi
- Enrolled in Bogazici University
- Graduated with Bachelor of Science in computer programming
- Occupations
- magazine writerresearcherjournalistopinion journalistuniversity teacher
- Biography
-
Zeynep Tufekci is a Turkish-American sociologist, and the Henry G. Bryant Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs at Princeton University. She is also a columnist for The New York Times. Her work focuses on social media, media ethics, the social implications of new technologies, such as artificial intelligence and big data, as well as societal challenges such as the COVID-19 pandemic using complex and systems-based thinking. According to The Chronicle of Higher Education, she is one of the most prominent academic voices on social media and the new public sphere. In 2022, Tufekci was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for her "insightful, often prescient, columns on the pandemic and American culture", which the committee said "brought clarity to the shifting official guidance and compelled us towards greater compassion and informed response."
-
Aslı Erdoğan
- Occupations
- columnistwriterhuman rights activistphysicist
- Biography
-
Aslı Erdoğan is a prize-winning Turkish writer, author, human rights activist, and columnist for Özgür Gündem and formerly for Radikal, ex political prisoner, particle physicist. Her second novel has been published in English, and eight books translated into twenty languages.
-
Harun Tekin (musician)
- Occupations
- singer
- Biography
-
Sami Harun Tekin is a Turkish singer, musician, and poet. He is one of the founding members and the vocalist of the Turkish rock band Mor ve Ötesi.
-
Feridun Sinirlioğlu
- Occupations
- diplomat
- Biography
-
Feridun Hadi Sinirlioğlu is a Turkish diplomat and politician serving as the Secretary General of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) since 6 December 2024. Previously, he served as permanent representative of Turkey to the United Nations from 2016 to 2023 and as the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkey from August 2015 to November 2015.
-
Arzuhan Doğan Yalçındağ
- Occupations
- entrepreneurbusinessperson
- Biography
-
Arzuhan Doğan Yalçındağ is a Turkish businesswoman and chairwoman of the Doğan Holding industrial conglomerate.
-
Sedef Kabaş
- Occupations
- journalist
- Biography
-
Sedef Kabaş is a Turkish journalist and television presenter who has presented on various news channels in Turkey since 1997. In January 2022, she received international attention after she was arrested following a television interview in which she was alleged to have insulted Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
-
Aylin Aslım
- Occupations
- recording artistactorfilm actorsingersongwriter
- Biography
-
Aylin Aslım is a Turkish singer, songwriter and actress.
-
Mustafa Akyol
- Occupations
- writerjournalistpolitical analyst
- Biography
-
Mustafa Akyol is a Turkish writer, intellectual and journalist. Notable for his advocacy on reform on blasphemy, apostasy and gender relations in the Muslim world, he has been called “probably the most notable Muslim modernist and reformer”.
-
Enis Berberoğlu
- Occupations
- journalistpolitician
- Biography
-
Kadri Enis Berberoğlu is a Turkish politician and journalist from the Republican People's Party (CHP), who has served as the Member of Parliament for Istanbul's second electoral district since 2015. Since the 18th CHP Extraordinary Convention of 2014, he has been the Deputy Leader of the party responsible for media relations and communications.
-
Murat Çetinkaya
- Occupations
- bankereconomist
- Biography
-
Murat Çetinkaya has served as the governor of Central Bank of Republic of Turkey between 2016 and 2019. He had been a member of top-level economic policy-making platforms in Turkey, such as Economic Policies Coordination Council, Financial Stability Committee. He was the official representative of Turkey in G-20. He contributed to the works of Financial Stability Board (FSB) and Bank for International Settlement (BIS). He had been co-chair for Financial Stability Board MENA Regional Consultative Group.
-
Ömür Gedik
- Years
- 1970-.. (age 55)
- Occupations
- journalistwriter
- Biography
-
Ömür Gedik is a Turkish journalist. She is a writer for Hürriyet newspaper, artist, animal rights advocate, a member of SİYAD (Association of Cinema Writers), and founder and president of HAÇİKO Association (The Association for the Protection of Animals from Desperation and Indifference).
-
Taylan Yıldız
- Enrolled in Bogazici University
- In 2001 graduated with bachelor's degree
- Occupations
- politician
- Biography
-
Vedat Taylan Yıldız is a Turkish politician. He is member of the Good Party group in the Municipal Council of Istanbul.
-
Reha Erdem
- Occupations
- film directorfilm editorscreenwriter
- Biography
-
Reha Erdem is a Turkish film director and screenwriter.
-
Mehmet Fatih Kacır
- Occupations
- politician
- Biography
-
Mehmet Fatih Kacır is a Turkish politician and entrepreneur.
-
Hilal Kaplan
- Occupations
- journalist
- Biography
-
Hilal Kaplan is a Turkish journalist and TRT board member and columnist for the Turkish newspaper Taraf, Yeni Şafak, Sabah and Daily Sabah.
-
Hurşit Güneş
- Years
- 1957-.. (age 68)
- Occupations
- politicianeconomist
- Biography
-
Hurşit Güneş is a Turkish politician and professor of economics, who had served as deputy chairman of Republican People's Party (CHP); and he has been deputy of Kocaeli Province since 2011.
-
Ravza Kavakcı Kan
- Occupations
- university teacherpolitician
- Biography
-
Ravza Kavakçı Kan is a Turkish politician, elected as the President of the Turkish Inter-Parliamentary Union Group for the 27th legislative term of Grand National Assembly of Turkey and is a member of the Committee on Digital Platforms that is newly established.
-
İbrahim Eren
- Biography
-
İbrahim Eren is a Turkish bureaucrat.
-
Suat Atalık
- Occupations
- chess player
- Biography
-
Suat Atalık is a Turkish-Bosnian chess grandmaster. He is a three-time Turkish Chess Champion and the first Turkish chess-player ever to obtain title of chess Grandmaster.
-
Genco Gulan
- Occupations
- television producerfilm screenwriterphotographerchoreographersculptor
- Biography
-
Genco Gülan is a contemporary conceptual artist and theorist who lives and works in Istanbul. His transmedia and contextual work involves painting, found objects, new media, drawings, sculpture, photography, performance, and video.
-
Pelin Esmer
- Enrolled in Bogazici University
- Graduated with bachelor's degree in sociology
- Occupations
- sociologistfilm producerscreenwriterfilm directorfilm editor
- Biography
-
Pelin Esmer is a Turkish Film director, screenwriter and film producer.
-
Murat Gülsoy
- Occupations
- writer
- Biography
-
Murat Gülsoy is a Turkish writer. He started his literary career as a publisher and a writer of the bimonthly magazine Hayalet Gemi (Ghost Ship) in 1992. Since then, he has published 18 books. Besides short stories, he has novels addressing modern masters Kafka, Borges, Eco, Laurence Sterne, Fowles and Orhan Pamuk. He is the recipient of various prestigious national literary awards, and has given interviews in national media. He has been conducting creative writing workshops since 2004.
-
Celil Oker
- Occupations
- journalistwriter
- Biography
-
Celil Oker was a Turkish crime fiction writer.
-
Sedef Ecer
- Occupations
- directorscreenwriterwritertheatrical directorplaywright
- Biography
-
Sedef Ecer is a Turkish-French playwright, novelist, actress and screenwriter. She began her career as a child film actress in Turkey, and later moved to France. She has written a number of plays in both Turkish and French, which have been widely translated, and her first novel was published in 2021.
-
Taner Edis
- Years
- 1967-.. (age 58)
- Occupations
- physicist
- Biography
-
Taner Edis is a Turkish American physicist and skeptic. He is a professor of physics at Truman State University. He received his B.S. from Boğaziçi University in Turkey and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University. Edis is the author of several books on creationism, religion and science. He is a scientific and technical consultant for the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry.
-
Baybars Altuntaş
- Occupations
- entrepreneurwriter
- Biography
-
Baybars Altuntaş is a Turkish entrepreneur, angel investor, speaker and author based in Istanbul. He founded Deulcom International, a vocational training school in Turkey in 1992 and currently serves as the president of the executive committee of the company. He is currently a jury member on the new Turkish entrepreneurship program and is the current host of the Turkish version of The Weakest Link, En Zayıf Halka
-
Burak Akcapar
- Occupations
- diplomat
- Biography
-
Burak Akçapar is a Turkish diplomat, scholar, and author currently serving as Turkey's Permanent Representative to the United Nations Office at Geneva. Previously, he held the position of Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs. Akçapar has served as Turkey’s Ambassador to Spain from 2021 until 2023 and to India from 2011 until 2017. He is an Associate Professor of International Relations and the author of three books on topics related to diplomacy and international law.
-
Murat Ertel
- Occupations
- singer
- Biography
-
Osman Murat Ertel is a Turkish musician. He is the son of Mengü Ertel and Ülfet Ertel.
-
Hişyar Özsoy
- Occupations
- academicpolitician
- Biography
-
Hişyar Özsoy, is a Turkish politician and academic of Kurdish descent. He is a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) for the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP)
-
Ivet Bahar
- Enrolled in Bogazici University
- 1975-1983 graduated with Bachelor of Science
- Occupations
- university teacherbiologist
- Biography
-
Ivet Bahar is a Turkish-American computational biologist, currently serving as the Director of the Louis and Beatrice Laufer Center for Physical and Quantitative Biology, Louis & Beatrice Laufer Endowed Chair and Professor of Biochemistry and Cell Biology at the Stony Brook University, School of Medicine. Before joining Stony Brook University, she served as Distinguished Professor, John K. Vries Chair and Founder of the Department of Computational and Systems Biology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, and as Assistant (1986-1987), Associate (1987-1993) and Full Professor (1993-2001) at the Chemical Engineering Department of Boğaziçi University, Istanbul, Turkey. Dr. Bahar is also the co-founder of an internationally acclaimed Joint CMU-Pitt Ph.D. Program in Computational Biology, CPCB, offered by the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University. She is an elected member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) since 2000. She was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2020.
-
Sedat Bornovalı
- Occupations
- art historianlinguist
- Biography
-
Sedat Bornovalı is an art historian (PhD), interpreter and professional tourist guide in Italian, English and Turkish.
-
Uğur Ersoy
- Occupations
- engineer
- Biography
-
Uğur Ersoy is a Turkish civil engineer and academic.
-
Tuna Altinel
- Occupations
- mathematician
- Biography
-
Tuna Altınel is a Turkish mathematician, born February 12, 1966, in Istanbul, who has worked at the University Lyon 1 in France since 1996. He is a specialist in group theory and mathematical logic. With Alexandre Borovik and Gregory Cherlin, he proved a major case of the Cherlin–Zilber conjecture.
-
Niko Guido
- Occupations
- photographer
- Biography
-
Niko Guido is a Turkish-French photographer.
-
Mehmet Ali İrtemçelik
- Occupations
- diplomatpolitician
- Biography
-
Mehmet Ali İrtemçelik is the previous ambassador of the Republic of Turkey to Germany. He has also served as member of parliament in the Grand National Assembly of Turkey and as a minister of state in the Council of Ministers of Turkey. He graduated from Galatasaray High School and Boğaziçi University, both in Istanbul, Turkey.
-
Zeynep Ergun
- Occupations
- linguistprofessor
- Biography
-
Zeynep Ergun was a professor at Institute of Social Sciences English Language and Literature Department of Istanbul University.
-
Halil Mete Soner
- Occupations
- mathematician
- Biography
-
Halil Mete Soner is a Turkish American mathematician born in Ankara and is the Normal John Sollenberger Professor at Princeton University. Soner's research interests are nonlinear partial differential equations; asymptotic analysis of Ginzburg-Landau type systems, viscosity solutions, and mathematical finance. Currently he is working on mean field games and control and related nonlinear partial differential equations on Wasserstein spaces.
-
Özge Samancı
- Occupations
- university teacher
- Biography
-
Özge Samancı is a Turkish-American media artist, and associate professor at Northwestern University`s School of Communication. She creates media art installations and graphic novels. Her art installations merge computer code and bio-sensors with comics, animation, interactive narrations, performance, and projection art. Her installations use media arts to break down people's mental and emotional barriers and hear about environmental issues. Her graphic novels combine drawings with three-dimensional objects.
-
Özdil Nami
- Occupations
- politician
- Biography
-
Özdil Nami is a British-born Turkish Cypriot politician. He has served as the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Northern Cyprus and the Turkish Cypriot Special Representative in the negotiations to solve the Cyprus dispute. He currently serves as the Minister of Economy and Energy of Northern Cyprus.
-
Görgün Taner
- Biography
-
Gorgun Taner is the general director of the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (İKSV), a non-profit, non-governmental organisation founded in 1973 that organises four international festivals (film, theatre, classical music and jazz), the Istanbul Biennial, and the Istanbul Design Biennial. He has been working at the foundation since 1983, where he first worked at Istanbul Film Days (renamed later as Istanbul Film Festival) as coordinator of Kent Movie Theater, and later served as assistant director and program coordinator for foreign relations of Istanbul Festival (1987–1994), director of Istanbul Jazz Festival (1994–2002), before being appointed as General Director in 2002.
-
Halil Güven
- Occupations
- engineer
- Biography
-
Halil Guven is a Cypriot-born professor, currently serving as the Dean of San Diego State University - Georgia. He was a Vice Dean of SDSU Georgia for four years before then and was one of the coordinators of the project at the time of its conception. Dr. Güven served as a Rector at three different universities in Turkey and in Cyprus. He served as the rector of Istanbul Bilgi University appointed in the academic year of 2009–2010, Eastern Mediterranean University (EMU), North Cyprus in 2004–2007, and Bahçeşehir University, Istanbul, Turkey in 1999–2003. He received his B.S. degree from Boğaziçi University (Istanbul, 1978), his M.S. degree from Mississippi State University on Fulbright Scholarship (1981), and his Ph.D. degree from University of Houston, in Mechanical Engineering(1983). Alongside his 20+ articles in energy systems in peer-reviewed journals, Güven has edited books and published book chapters on Globalization, Leadership, Clash of civilizations and Education. He speaks Turkish, English, and moderate Spanish and Greek.
-
Çiler İlhan
- Enrolled in Bogazici University
- Graduated with international relations
- Occupations
- translatorshort story writerwriterpublic relations executivenovelist
- Biography
-
Çiler İlhan is a Turkish-Dutch writer. İlhan has been an active writer since her youth. In 1993, she won the Yaşar Nabi Nayır Youth Awards award for one of her short stories. She regularly publishes stories, essays, book reviews, travel pieces and translations in newspapers and magazines. Her first book "Rüya Tacirleri Odası" " is a collection of short stories that allude to one another. Her second book entitled "Sürgün" ("Exile", Everest, March 2010) contains interconnected stories whose themes range from the invasion of Iraq to women from Batman, and the fate of laboratory. Sürgün (Exile) won the EU Prize for Literature 2011, and was translated and published into English by Istros Books, London in 2016. Exile, shortlisted also for Prix Du Livre Lorientales 2017, has so far been published in over 20 countries. Nişan Evi (Engagement, Everest, 2021) is a striking novella, told in a unique voice, based on the true story of a mass murder that took place in May 2009, in southeastern Turkey. Hayattayız Madem (Everest Publications, 2023) is her last novel spanning 1943 to 2018, Amsterdam to Auschwitz, and Aleppo to Istanbul where a father and his daughters encounter a Syrian refugee in their neighbourhood Teşvikiye in Istanbul. Ilhan's stories and articles were selected for over 20 prominent national and international anthologies. She is a member of Turkish and Dutch PEN.
-
Ayşe Sinirlioğlu
- Occupations
- diplomat
- Biography
-
Ayşe Sinirlioğlu is a Turkish diplomat, who has been her country's ambassador to Romania and then to Spain and Andorra. She became Turkey's first woman deputy undersecretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In 2015 she was the Sherpa during Turkey's presidency and the Antalya summit of the G20 group of countries.
-
Seda Eğridere
- Occupations
- film directorscreenwriter
- Biography
-
Seda Eğridere is a Turkish actress and film director. Eğridere acted in Alina, the Turkish Assassin. In an interview with Hurriyet, Bobby Roth said "I accepted the project and agreed to shoot in Turkey only because I trusted Seda." In 2014, Eğridere made her directorial debut with the wartime drama Seasons of War, a story about a multi-ethnic couple during the Siege of Sarajevo.
-
Yener Sonusen
- Occupations
- businessperson
- Biography
-
Yener Mehmet Sonuşen is a Turkish businessman. He is on the boards of Savola Food Inc., Yudum Food Co., Bahçeşehir Koleji and Egypt food Co.
