Ahmet Murat Yildirim was borned in Gemlik/Bursa in 1967. He studied Mechanical Engineering and took his Ph.D. at University of Uludag, Turkey. He then joined Balikesir University in 1988 being the youngest academician of Turkey in this field. In the same year, he achieved the Academic Leadership and/or Accomplishment prize in "Ten Outstanding Young Persons in the World". He directed the section of the energy sciences of the department and worked as Assistant Professor for 10 years. He has around 50 scientific papers presented in conferences and published in journals. His Ford career started in 1998 in the Department of Product Development as Qualified Combustion/Emission Techologies Specialist. His group designed a totally new engine which meets Euro 3 / 4 emission standards and developed a new generation of Euro1 Dovertech Engine. He appointed Coordinator of R&D Department in 2002. In addition his duty inside of Ford Otosan, he also works for Koc Group as the "President of Technology and R&D Working Group". He is also the president of Energy and Emmissions Committee of the Ministry of Industry. Furthermore, he is leading the ongoing Fuel Cell Project and Hybrid Electric Vehicle Development Project with the partnerships of several companies of Koc Group. He also manages many other collaborations among Tubitak Research Center and universities. He is the founder and the chairman of ICAT conferences. He is married and has a son.

Status	Full-time Professor in Automotive Division
Education (Earned Degrees)	Degree Field Institution Year B.Sc. ME ITU 1975 M.Sc. ME ITU 1977 Ph.D. ME ITU 1982
Courses taught	Undergraduate: Powertrain Assembly, Vehicle Construction Graduate: Vehicle Design
Areas of research	Vehicle Design, Breaks, Vibration analyses
Principal publications of last five years	1) ERGENEMAN, M., SORUŞBAY, C., GÖKTAN, A.G.; "Environmental aspects and exhaust emissions from duel fuel diesel engine driven vehicles", Energy Sources, volume 21, number 3, pp. 257-268, April 1999 2) ERGENEMAN, M., SORUŞBAY, C., GÖKTAN, A.G.; "Environmental aspects and exhaust emissions from duel fuel diesel engine driven vehicles", Energy Sources, volume 21, number 3, pp. 257-268, April 1999 3) EREN, H.; GÖKTAN, A.G.; "External torque application on antilock brake systems"; Proc. Instn.Mech.Engrs Vol 215 Part D, ImechE 2001 4) YETKİN, Argun, GÖKTAN, Ali G.; "A Mathematical Model for Exhaust System Vibrations"; SAE 2001 World Congress, Detroit, Michigan, March 5-8, 2001. 5) CHERNG, J.G.; GOKTAN, A.;FRENCH, M.; JACOB, A.; "Improving Drive Files For Vehicle Road Simulations"; Journal of Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing, Vol. 15, No. 5, Sep 2001, pp. 1007-1022 6) YETKİN, Argun, GÖKTAN, Ali G.; "Road Load Data Estimation on Multiaxial Test Rigs for Exhaust System Vibrations"; SAE 2002 World Congress, Detroit, Michigan, March 5-8, 2002. 7) GÖKŞENLİ, Ali; GÖKTAN, Ali G.; "Analysis and Optimisation of Automobile Characteristics in its Early Design Phases by using a Mathematical Model"; 4th International Conference on Advanced Engineering Design; Glasgow, Scotland, UK, 5-8 September 2004
Institutional services in the last five years	Head of Automotive Division 1995-2004, Institut for Science and Technology Executive Board since 1996, Head of Executive Board of Automotive Technology R&D Center
Memberships of scientific and professional societies	MMO, AvHumboldt Scholarships Association, SAE.
Honors and awards	Scholarship DAAD 1980-1982, Scholarship Alexander von Humboldt 1985-1986, 1989
Principal funded R&D projects and selected professional services of last five years	Automotive Technology R&D Center , DPT Automotive Technology R&D Center, DPT Istanbul City Cycle And Model For Exhaust Emissions And Fuel Consumption, AvH-Stiftung, OSD, Ford Otosan Generic Road Load Profiles Mechanism for second steering axes of CARGO 3226

Prof.Tezer is General Secretary of OSD-Motor Vehicle Manufacturers Association of Turkey. OSD is representing motor vehicle manufacturers in Turkey.

Prof.Tezer graduated from Ankara University in 1960, and did his post graduate studies in same University at agricultural machinery department. He quitted university after 23 years of service and joined the industry. He worked for Ford Tractor as general manager and Daimler Benz companies as a marketing director in Turkey between the years 1983 to 1992. Prof.Tezer joined OSD in 1992.

His responsibilities include organizing and conducting meetings in different field of activities with the experts from the industry. He is also responsible to represent the industry in front of the various governmental organizations. OSD is also the information center of motor vehicle industry where various report are prepared and published.

Evren Ozatay studied Mechanical Engineering and took his M.Sc. at Middle East Technical University, Turkey. He then moved to US for his Ph.D. studies at Penn State University. He worked as Research Assistant during these academic periods. His Ford career started in 2004 in the R&D Coordination department. Meanwhile, he continues his Ph.D. in Istanbul Technical University on Advanced Control Technologies. He was the main organizer and the conference secretariat of ICAT 2004 conference, held in Istanbul in November, 2004. He is now in charge of coordinating all the R&D activities inside of Ford Otosan.

Aytul Ercil received her BS degrees in Electrical Engineering and Mathematics from Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey in 1979, MS and PhD degrees in Applied Mathematics from Brown University, USA in 1980 and 1983 respectively. She worked at GM Research Laboratories, USA as a senior research scientist and staff research scientist till 1988. She has been a Professor at Bogazici University, Turkey and has been a technical consultant to various organizations during 1988-2001. She is currently a Professor at Faculty of Engineering at Sabanci University, Istanbul Turkey and the director of VPALAB - Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Lab which has recently been selected by the European Union as a "potential center of excellence".

She has directed many national and international research projects, received many awards (international achievement award, best R&D project award, Eureka success story, women scientist of the year) and has over 100 publications.

Her research topics include: Invariant object recognition, shape modelling, texture analysis, pattern recognition, biometrics, face expression analysis, multi-modal classification.

She is currently a governing board member of IAPR – International Association of Pattern Recognition, president of TOTIAD –Turkish Pattern Recognition and Image Processing Society and a member of the IEEE Computer Society.

Levent Guvenc received the B.S. degree in mechanical engineering from Bogazici University in Istanbul, in 1985, the M.S. degree in mechanical engineering from Clemson University in 1988 and the Ph.D. degree in mechanical engineering from the Ohio State University in 1992. Since 1996, he has been working in the mechanical engineering department of Istanbul Technical University where he is currently a professor of mechanical engineering and director of the Mechatronics Research Lab (MEKAR) and the EU funded Automotive Controls and Mechatronics Research Center (AUTOCOM). He spent the year 2000 working as a guest researcher sponsored by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in the Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics of the German Aerospace Center in Oberpfaffenhofen. Prof. Güvenc is experienced in new course and educational lab development. He has also designed undergraduate and graduate level mechatronics curricula. He has organized several special sessions and panels on automotive control systems at major conferences. He was a member of the program committee of the first IFAC Symposium on Automotive Control. He has about 80 technical publications in controls, robotics, and mechatronics, has a European patent on yaw stability control (with colleagues), and is one of the co-authors of the book Robust Control: the Parameter Space Approach. His current research interests concentrate on automotive control and mechatronics, helicopter stability and control, mechatronics and applied robust control. He is a member of the IEEE and IFAC Technical Committees on Automotive Control and the IFAC Technical Committee on Mechatronics.