Research Experience

CON-NET: Platform-Agnostic Bot Detection Model

TUBITAK & CHIST-ERA funded project

Jan 2025 - Feb 2026

Supervisor: Prof. Onur Varol
Project: Integrating CONtent and NETwork structure for detecting, understanding, and mitigating online misbehaviour

Designed and implemented a platform-agnostic bot detection model as part of my graduation project. Implemented account and action-based VAE models and compared them with PCA for dimensionality reduction. Conducted feature engineering to ensure cross-platform compatibility and developed novel approaches (e.g. Learning to Place, SpringRank) to avoid distribution shifts across social media platforms.

Partial Observable Multi-Agent Path Finding with Constrained Communication

Erasmus Internship, University of Luxembourg

July - Sep 2025

Supervisors: Prof. Leon van der Torre & Dr. Pere Pardo Ventura
Focus: Multi-Agent Systems, Epistemic Planning, Answer Set Programming

Designed a framework to solve a novel variant of the Multi-Agent Path Finding (MAPF) problem featuring partial observability, decentralization, and anonymous task-sequential requirements with constrained communication. Modeled observation and communication using dynamic epistemic logic and employed Answer Set Programming for collaborative planning under uncertainty. Developed a simulation script to compare performance across different discovery methods and agent configurations.

Solving Matching Problems Using AI Methods

PURE Project, Sabancı University

Sep 2024 - Jan 2025

Supervisor: Prof. Esra Erdem
Project Type: Program for Undergraduate Research (PURE)

Designed a student-to-department assignment system using Gale-Shapley algorithm and Constraint Programming to balance student preferences, diversity goals, and department capacities.

Aug 2023 - Jan 2024

Supervisors: Prof. Berrin Yanıkoğlu & Dr. Esma Fatıma Bilgin Taşdemir
Project: Automatic Transcription of Ottoman Documents with Deep Learning

Contributed to improving the accuracy of automatic transcription system for historical Ottoman documents using deep learning. Enhanced image segmentation capabilities of existing R-CNN model and achieved significant improvement in model accuracy for document transcription, working with historical document datasets and OCR challenges.

A Digital Analysis of an Early Ottoman Chronicle

PURE Project, Sabancı University

July - Sep 2023

Supervisors: Dr. İnanç Arın & Dr. Mehmet Kuru
Project Type: Digital Humanities Research

Participated in a PURE (Program for Undergraduate Research) project supervised by Dr. İnanç Arın and Dr. Mehmet Kuru. Created geo-visualizations and interactive data analyses of Aşıkpaşazade's Chronicle, performed NLP analyses using BERT and BERTopic to explore sentiment and themes, and developed an LLM-based chatbot using GPT-3.5 to enable dynamic user interaction with the chronicle.

Research Collaboration

Research Groups & Labs

Throughout my research journey, I have worked with multiple research groups and labs:

  • ▹ Game Theory & Decision Theory Group (Laboratory for Computational Intelligence, Prof. Kevin Leyton-Brown, University of British Columbia)
  • ▹ CogRobo Lab (Knowledge Representation and Reasoning & Cognitive Robotics Group, Prof. Esra Erdem, Sabancı University)
  • ▹ VRL Lab (Viral Research Lab, Prof. Onur Varol, Sabancı University)
  • ▹ Individual and Collective Reasoning Group (Prof. Leon van der Torre, University of Luxembourg)
  • ▹ Digital Humanities Lab (Prof. Berrin Yanıkoğlu & Dr. Mehmet Kuru, Sabancı University)
    • danfront.com — Built a website from scratch with an interactive map and visualizations for the danfront project.
    • ezopalaturka.github.io — Built the website and story database for Ezop Alaturka, a comparative digital archive of the early modern Turkish translations of Aesop's fables gathered from 14 manuscript and print collections.
    • forgeryatlas.com — Built the website and interactive network and map visualizations for ForgeryAtlas, which traces an Ottoman-Italian counterfeit currency network and the diplomacy around it between 1858 and 1861.
    • mozaikoyun.github.io — Co-built MOZAİK, an interactive historical narrative game set between 1922 and 1973, as a digital humanities experiment in telling archival stories through play.

Teaching Experience

Teaching has been an integral part of my academic journey. As a Teaching Assistant, I've had the privilege to help fellow students understand complex concepts while deepening my own knowledge.

Teaching Assistant - Introduction to Artificial Intelligence

University of British Columbia

Sep 2026 - Present

Course: AI 100 - Introduction to Artificial Intelligence

  • Responsible for the maintenance of the coding workspace application designed for the course
  • Conducting the labs
  • Helping students with their projects and other course-related questions through the course forum

Teaching Assistant - Theory of Computation

Sabancı University

Jan 2026 - June 2026

Instructor: Prof. Kemal İnan | Course: CS 407 - Theory of Computation

  • Held weekly office hours to provide one-on-one assistance with course content
  • Graded quizzes and homework

Teaching Assistant - Algorithms

Sabancı University

Jan 2025 - Jan 2026

Instructor: Prof. Esra Erdem | Course: CS 301 - Algorithms

  • Co-conducted weekly recitations and problem solving sessions
  • Held weekly office hours to provide one-on-one assistance with course content

Teaching Assistant - Machine Learning

Sabancı University

Sep 2024 - Jan 2025

Instructor: Dr. Onur Varol | Course: CS 412 - Machine Learning

  • Held office hours to provide one-on-one assistance with assignments and course content
  • Exam proctoring and grading

Teaching Assistant - Data Structures

Sabancı University

Sep 2023 - Jan 2024

Instructor: Dr. Gülşen Demiröz | Course: CS 300 - Data Structures

  • Conducted recitations, provided problem-solving support, and exam proctoring, and assignments grading
  • Held office hours for assignment help and concept clarification