Dr. Billur Barshan, an associate professor from the Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, has been named the recipient of the 1999 Professor Dr. Mustafa N. Parlar Education and Research Foundation Research Encouragement Award. The award is given annually to young researchers who have demonstrated the potential to make significant contributions to science and technology. Dr. Barshan was presented with this award for her original research into the development of intelligent sensing systems for mobile robots (that is, how a robot differentiates features of an unknown environment while in motion).

Dr. Barshan received her Ph.D. from Yale University in 1991 and carried out postdoctoral research at the Oxford University Robotics Research Group until she joined Bilkent in 1993. Dr. Barshan is the founder of the Robotics and Intelligent Sensing Laboratory at Bilkent University, which has extensive facilities for conducting experimental work. Since this unit was established, Dr. Barshan and her students have been working on the development of innovative intelligent sensing systems.