Profile

I had my bachelor's in Molecular Biology and Genetics and master's in Biology at Middle East Technical University in Ankara, TURKEY. As an undergrad I took a role in the COLOSS survey examining bee losses in Turkey in the early 2006 where I got my firs experience with bee research and academic publishing.

Later I obtained a PhD degree in Entomology in Dr. Christina Grozinger's lab at Penn State where I focused on overwintering phenotype in honey bees from molecular, physiological, and ecological perspectives.

Since 2017, I have been a postdoctoral researcher and a lecturer at the Biology Department at University of Puerto Rico in Rio Piedras. Here, my research broadly focuses on mechanisms by which honey bees survive adverse periods with limited resources. I use a variety of molecular and field techniques in order to understand the changes required the seasonal transition in honey bee biology on transcriptomic, physiological, organismal, and social levels. Additionally, we are running some exciting experiments on molecular basis of long term memory formation in honey bees.

A list of my publications can be found here: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=MHs0tn8AAAAJ&hl=en