US Ambassador Emphasizes Friendship During Bilkent Visit

BY ZEHRA NİDA ALTAYLI (IR/V)

United States Ambassador to Turkey Francis J. Ricciardone visited Bilkent University on December 13 to meet with International Relations students. Invited by Associate Professor Ersel Aydınlı, also serving as executive director of the Turkish Fulbright Commission, to address his class IR 351 "Globalization,"  Ricciardone was greeted by over 70 IR students, faculty members and Chairman of the Board of Trustees and President of Bilkent University Ali Doğramacı. "We need more people like you," Ricciardone told Bilkent students, adding that the ideas, skills and imagination of young people were indispensable for future cooperation.

Ambassador Ricciardone emphasized the fact that "people to people contact" and "talking to each other" were a vital part of US President

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Assoc. Prof. Müfit Sezer Receives Sedat Simavi Science Award

Associate Professor Müfit Sezer of the Department of Mathematics has recently received the 2011Sedat Simavi Science Award for his work entitled "Explicit Separating Invariants for Cyclic P-Groups."
Bestowed by the Turkish Journalists Association since 1997, the Sedat Simavi Awards recognize outstanding achievements in the fields of art, culture, science and sports. The prizes are given annually in memory of author, caricaturist and journalist Sedat Simavi (1856-1953), the founder of Hürriyet daily newspaper. The awards ceremony will be held at the Marmara Taksim Hotel on December 22.

Assoc. Prof. Sezer has been conducting his research at Bilkent University since 2007. His research interests are in the areas of invariant theory and commutative algebra.

Faculty Members Receive METU Parlar Foundation Awards

Assoc. Prof. Selin Sayek Böke, chair of the Department of Economics, and Asst. Prof. Mustafa Özgür Güler of UNAM (Institute of Materials Science and Nanotechnology) have received 2011 METU Prof. Dr. Mustafa N. Parlar Foundation Research Incentive Awards.

The awards are bestowed by the Parlar Foundation in honor of the late METU professor Mustafa Parlar. Every year the foundation recognizes the achievements of scientists and scholars from a variety of fields for their exceptional research productivity.

Selin Sayek Böke received her PhD from Duke University in 1999. She worked at Bentley College as an assistant professor for two years before joining the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as an economist. During her two years with the IMF, Dr. Böke also taught at the Georgetown University Public Policy Institute. She joined the Department of Economics at Bilkent University in 2003. In 2006 she received the Excellence Award in Global Economic Affairs, granted by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, and in 2010 she received the "TÜBİTAK Incentive Award," granted by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK) for her work on the effects of foreign direct investment (FDI) on FDI recipient economies.

Mustafa Özgür Güler received his PhD from Northwestern University in 2006. He worked at the Institute for BioNanotechnology in Medicine at the Northwestern University School of Medicine until 2008. He joined UNAM in 2008. His research interests include bioinspired and biomimetic materials, functional materials, biomaterials, self-assembled supramolecular systems, smart coatings for surfaces science, regenerative medicine, catalytic nanostructures and materials for renewable energy. In 2011, Dr. Güler also received the Turkish Academy of Sciences (TÜBA) Young Scientist Award (GEBİP).

IAED Students Create Prize-Winning Furniture Design

Department of  Interior Architecture and Environmental  Design fourth-year students Eray Erdemli, Cansu Baklacı and Ayşe Merve Güner have won first prize at the Seventh National Household Furniture Design Contest organized by MOSDER (the Association of the Turkish Furniture Industry).

In the first phase of the competition, their project was among the top three chosen for production. Alfemo Furniture, a major furniture manufacturer, went on to produce their design.

On December 13, the contestants received first prize in the category of "Storage, Presentation and Protection" at a ceremony held at Yapı Endüstri Merkezi (the Building Information Center) in İstanbul.

The prize-winning designs were exhibited at Yapı Endüstri Merkezi until December 15.

Department of Performing Arts to Present "Kahvehane"

BY BESTE HASKAN (ELIT/IV)

The Department of Performing Arts will be presenting "Kahvehane" (The Coffee Shop) -- a new adaptation of an eighteenth-century play by Carlo Goldoni, which will have its premiere on December 27.  Directed by Hakan Çimenser and performed in Turkish, the play is mainly concerned with the rising power of money in the capitalist system, which gradually makes each of us "modern slaves." The coffee shop from which the play takes its name is situated next to a casino in Venice, and its customers drop in for coffee after they are done gambling. The function of this little coffee shop is quite significant, though: it bears witness at first hand to how the capitalist system works, and during the course of the play becomes involved in the "crime" itself.

In his prologue to the play, director Çimenser refers to its core idea in the following words: "In this dirty wheel and between deformed gears, where each of us has to live as a slave of money and power and where the journey to self-creation requires undermining each other, are you aware that our women are crushed while we are sipping lies from our big foamy coffees, and that we are all becoming the same?"

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