UBC Mechanical Engineering professor Yusuf Altintas has received the Engineering Science Special Award from the Scientific and Technical Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) – Turkey’s highest science and engineering award – given annually to the scientist with the highest scientific recognition in engineering science who is Turkish but living outside Turkey.
Altintas was honoured at a ceremony hosted by Turkey’s president Abdullah Gül at the Çankaya Presidential Palace on Thursday, December 3, 2013.
Along with the award, Altintas was presented with $50,000 Turkish Lira (~$25,000CAD), which he has since donated to the non-profit foundation Çağdaş Yaşamı Destekleme Derneği (CYDD) – Turkey’s Association for Supporting Contemporary Life, which mainly supports female students from rural Turkey for their higher education.
“I am very honoured by this recognition by my homeland and especially delighted that CYDD has chosen to focus my donation on needy students from the small town where I was raised,” says Altintas. His award speech (in Turkish): http://www.tccb.gov.tr/playVideo.asp?vid=37367
Altintas holds an NSERC-Pratt & Whitney Canada Industrial Research Chair in Virtual High-performance Machining, leads the NSERC Canadian Network for Research and Innovation in Machining Technology (CANRIMT) and is the leading scientific authority in machining and machine tool control engineering worldwide. In addition to having highest citation record in his field, his algorithms are used by over 130 companies worldwide in improving the quality and productivity of machining operations.
His has received numerous honours and distinctions from around the world in recognition of the global impact of his scholarly work. He is Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada; the Canadian Academy of Engineering; Pratt & Whitney Canada; the American Society of Mechanical Engineers; the International Academy of Production Engineering Researchers (CIRP); the international Society of Manufacturing Engineers; Tokyo University; and Engineers Canada. He has received Honorary Degrees from the Budapest University of Technology and Economics and the University of Stuttgart; and he received the APEGBC R.A. McLachlan Memorial Prize—the highest honour that can be bestowed on a B.C. engineer in recognition of his outstanding professional and community service.
For more information: http://www.tccb.gov.tr/news/397/87947/2013-tubitak-awards-ceremony-held-at-the-cankaya-presidential-palace.html