Prof. Engin Umut Akkaya is a graduate of the Chemistry Department of Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey.  He received his PhD from the Ohio State University in1989.  After postdoctoral work at the Ohio State University and the University of Maryland, School of Medicine, Baltimore, he accepted an offer from the Middle East Technical University (1995) and started work on his independent academic career in the chemistry department. 

 

He did pioneering work in fluorescent chemosensors and molecular logic gates, with ground breaking works published in Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS) and Angewandte Chemie.  His works have been selected for the front covers of these top journals.  In 2007, he moved to Bilkent University, Chemistry Department and started to focus on various issues regarding photodynamic therapy of cancer.  In 2018 he accepted an offer from Dalian University of Technology, State Key Laboratory of Fine Chemicals, in Dalian, China, exploring the potential therapeutic use of chemically generated singlet oxygen.  

 

He received highest accolades and awards from TÜBİTAK, Parlar Foundation, TÜSEB nationally, in addition to international awards such as TWAS Chemistry, COMSTECH, and Czarnik awards.  He is a Fellow of the RSC (FRSC) and a member of the Science Academy of Turkey.