Turkish woman scientist Bilge Demirköz to receive UNESCO grant

ANKARA - Anadolu Agency

Turkish scientist Bilge Demirköz has been named as one of this year’s 15 female recipients of the International Rising Talent grants, awarded annually as part of the L’Oreal-UNESCO For Women in Science program. 

An associate professor of physics at the Ankara-based Middle East Technical University (ODTÜ), Demirköz has been chosen for her work on space radiation, according to a Turkish Foreign Ministry source.

She is set to receive the award at a ceremony that will be held on March 23 in Paris.      

Demirköz, who was born in Istanbul in 1980 and studied at MIT, Oxford, Cambridge and CERN for 15 years before returning to Turkey five years ago to focus on particle physics at ODTÜ.     

“[Particle physics] is also commonly called High Energy Physics, as in most cases these fundamental particles need special high energy circumstances to create and study them,” reads a description on her ODTÜ department’s website.