Bio

My research interests span the areas of signal processing, optimization, machine learning, and inverse problems in imaging. I primarily focus on developing provably good, computationally efficient algorithms in addressing high dimensional inference problems, and leveraging advances in data science and artificial intelligence to design novel computational sensing and wave-based imaging methods. I earned my Ph.D. under the supervision of Prof. Birsen Yazici with my dissertation titled "Theory, Methods, and Algorithms for Interferometric Inversion and Phase Retrieval, with Applications to Wave-Based Imaging," where I studied the performance guarantees of novel active and passive imaging configurations using low-rank matrix recovery theory and non-convex optimization theory. 

I earned my bachelor`s degree in Electrical Engineering from Koc University, Istanbul, Turkey in 2015, and my Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, in 2020. I was a postdoctoral research associate with the Computational Imaging Group in the Electrical, Computer, and Systems Engineering (ECSE) department at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), Troy, NY from 2021 to 2024. 

I joined the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University at Albany, SUNY in Fall 2024. I am looking for Ph.D. students for multiple projects. If you are interested, feel free to email me.

Employment

• Assistant Professor; Sep. 2024 - Ongoing, College of Nanotechnology, Science, and Engineering, Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, University at Albany, State University of New York

Research program on advancing the state-of-the-art in solving challenging inverse problems in wave-based imaging, remote sensing, and radar signal processing by utilizing modern developments in data science and artificial intelligence. 

• Postdoctoral Research Associate; May 2021 - Jul. 2024, Computational Imaging Group in the Department of Electrical, Computer and Systems Engineering, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Research on the applications and performance analysis of deep learning and non-convex optimization theory for solving ill-posed inverse problems in imaging. 

• Graduate Research Assistant; Aug. 2015 - Dec. 2020, Electrical, Computer, and Systems Engineering Department, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Research on exact interferometric inversion and phase retrieval theory for applications to wave-based imaging.

• Research Intern at the Algorithmic Systems Group, Analog Garage; May 2019 - Aug. 2021, Analog Devices Inc.

Research and implementation of Gaussian processes and latent variable models for non-contact vital sign monitoring using ultra-wideband radar. 

Selected Talks

• ``Phaseless multi-static synthetic aperture radar," session on Mathematical Methods for Imaging at the SIAM Conference on Imaging Science, May 2024.

• ``Phaseless synthetic aperture radar imaging: advances, challenges, and prospects," keynote at the IEEE-NIST Conference on Computational Imaging Using Synthetic Apertures, May 2024.

• ``Deep phaseless imaging via Wirtinger flow with decoding prior," invited session on Deep Learning Based Computational Imaging, Asilomar Conference on Signals, Systems, and Computers, IEEE, Oct. 2022.

• ``A theory of exact interferometric inversion for passive imaging," invited session on Signal Processing, Machine Learning, and Large-scale Data Science at the Research and Applications of Photonics in Defense (RAPID) Conference, IEEE, Aug. 2020.

• ``Deep wave-based imaging: a novel framework for passive imaging systems," invited talk with the Computational Sensing Group, Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories, Cambridge, MA, Apr. 2019.

• ``Distributed wave-based imaging via interferometric processing: practical guarantees and limitations," invited talk at the Center for Sensor Systems (ZESS), University of Siegen, Germany, Mar. 2019.

• ``Deep learning-based imaging for applications in remote sensing," invited talk in the Deep Reconstruction Workshop, Center for Biotechnology and Interdisciplinary Studies, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, Nov. 2017.

• ``Algorithm unrolling for image reconstruction," invited talk with the Radiation Systems Team, General Electric Global Research Center, Niskayuna, NY, Apr. 2017.

Service

• Chair of the IEEE Synthetic Aperture Radar Image Quality Working Group (2024), voting member of the IEEE Synthetic Aperture Standards Committee (2023-2024).

• Reviewer for IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems (2019-2020), Transactions on Signal Processing (2020-2023), Wireless Communications Letters (2020), Transactions on Computational Imaging (2019-2023), Transactions on Wireless Communications (2022), Transactions on Aerospace and Electrical Systems (2023-2024); IET Sensor Letters (2019), MDPI Journal on Remote Sensing (2019-2021), MDPI Journal on Algorithms (2021), Elsevier Measurement (2021), IEEE Radar Conference (2021-2022), Asilomar Conference on Signals, Systems, and Computers (2022-2024), SNSF Mathematics, Informatics, Natural Sciences and Technology (2022), IEEE International Radar Conference (2024), Springer EURASIP Journal on Advances in Signal Processing (2024).