Oğul Can Yurdakul

Oğul Can Yurdakul

Welcome to my personal web page!

Commented CV

Below is my somewhat unofficial CV, with my comments about each item. You can find a more official and shorter version as a PDF here.

Education

M.Sc. in Electrical and Electronics Engineering, 10/2021 - Present
Middle East Technical University, Department of Electrical & Electronics Engineering
CGPA: 4.00 / 4.00
Specialization Area: Signal Processing
Supervisor: Dr Emre Ozkan
B.Sc. in Mathematics (Double Major), 10/2017 - 07/2022
Middle East Technical University, Department of Mathematics
High Honour, CGPA: 3.87 / 4.00
B.Sc. in Electrical and Electronics Engineering, 10/2016 - 01/2021
Middle East Technical University, Department of Electrical & Electronics Engineering
High Honour, CGPA: 3.76 / 4.00
Specialization Area: Biomedical Engineering
High School Graduate, 09/2012 - 06/2016
Ankara Private Tevfik Fikret High School

Research Experience

Summer 2019 - Present: Researcher
METU EEE Sensor Fusion Research Group
PI: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Emre Özkan
Under the supervision of Dr Emre Özkan, I study statistical signal processing, emphasising information fusion and extended target tracking.
Summer 2019: Summer Intern in Research
Karunya Institute of Technology and Sciences, Department of Instrumentation Engineering
Supervisors: Dr. M.S.P. Subathra & Dr. S. Thomas George
Wanting to experience being part of a research project, I decided to go to a research internship (and an adventure) via IAESTE, and the project in KITS seemed interesting (although that’s not the finalized project). I got to ask research questions with the help of my supervisors, and they helped me follow my own ideas based on the material I had, which produced this paper.
Summer 2018: Summer Intern
IBM Turkey, Istanbul Office
This was my first ever internship, and I value that it was not in research but in industry. I didn’t do anything noteworthy if you ask me (understandable, as I had just finished 2nd year so I didn’t know much), but still I enjoyed my time there and learned some stuff, especially about working in an office/company environment. It helped me see what to look for in a company if I were ever to switch to working in the industry.

Leadership and Teaching Experience

February 2022 - Present: Teaching Assistant
Middle East Technical University
Although the job title is “research assistant,” it is a teaching assistantship position, meaning I am TA for various courses. Here are the courses I have worked in so far:
- EE230 Probability and Random Variables
- EE306 Signals and Systems II
- EE361 Electromechanical Energy Conversion I.
- EE415 Introduction to Medical Imaging.
- EE416 Biomedical Signals, Instrumentation and Measurements.
(Check out the MATLAB tutorial I prepared for EE230 and EE306 courses!)
July 2023: Lead Teaching Assistant
Neuromatch Academy Computational Neuroscience track, Lead TA (Certificate)
In addition to the regular TA responsibilities, I was also tasked with leading seven other regular TAs. I assisted with their training and guided them regarding pod management along with other administrative responsibilities, such as dealing with TA absences.
July 2021: Teaching Assistant
Neuromatch Academy Computational Neuroscience track, Tutorial TA (Certificate)
Having enjoyed being an interactive student immensely the year before, I wanted to become a TA in NMA-CN. I was responsible for a pod in NMA-CN online summer school. I helped them go over tutorials about fundamental topics on computational neuroscience and develop a project, answered their questions about the coding exercises and the underlying theory.
Here’s a Twitter thread on a funny incident I went through at the end of my TAship this year.
Fall 2018 & Spring 2020: Part-Time Student Assistant
METU Department of Mathematics
I was the student assistant for the course MA153 Calculus for Mathematics Students I (Fall 2018) and MA154 Calculus for Mathematics Students II (Spring 2020); and I graded weekly assignments and provided feedback to students.

Organizations, Trainings & Others

May 2022 - Present: Volunteer at Neuromatch

2019 - 2021: Coordinator in IAESTE LC METU
I was responsible for the acquisition and organization of work offers from around Ankara for IAESTE LC METU, trained newcomers on company relations, and hosted the incoming interns.

Summer 2020: Student in Neuronal Dynamics for Embodied Cognition

Summer 2020: Interactive Student in Neuromatch Academy
I participated in a 3-week long, intense summer school as an interactive student, which entailed preparing a project. In the project, we used linear models from scikit-learn Python library and worked on preprocessed fMRI data.
NMA became a cornerstone in defining my scientist-to-be, with its inclusivity and commitment to open science. At the end of these three weeks, I was already keen on remaining a part of NMA, somehow.

January 2020: Participant in 4th HBP Student Conference on Interdisciplinary Brain Research

Fall 2019: Instructor for Mathematics Workshop
I was offered an opportunity to deliver a workshop on mathematics to a group of second-year at my high school Ankara Private Tevfik Fikret High School. More in side gigs.
05/2017 – 05/2018: Team Leader and Director of Communications for TEDxMETUAnkara 2017 “Grand Illusions”
I booked speakers and worked with them on their speeches and was responsible for the overall operations of the event. I also designed and managed the event website on Wix. More in side gigs.

Publications

I suppose a CV has to contain this section. So, for completeness sake, here is a list of publication(s, hopefully).

Languages

Natural:
Turkish (Native)
English (Proficient)
French (Previously proficient, needs some practice talking)
Latin (Aspiring beginner for absolutely no reason at all)
Formal:
MATLAB (Experienced)
Python (Experienced)
WebPPL (Took a course that used it)
ANSI Common LISP (Took a course on it once, loved it)
C (Took my mandatory programming course in it, did not like it. I only use it if I have to, meaning when I’m using an Arduino board.)
and various other languages I learned at one point but did not dwell on too much, such as R and C++.

See my blog post for more.