Bige Deniz Unluturk

About Me

Education

Ph.D., Electrical and Computer Engineering,
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, 2020

M.Sc., Electrical and Computer Engineering,
Koc University, Istanbul, Turkey, 2013

B.Sc., Electrical and Electronics Engineering,
Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey, 2011

Biography

I am an assistant professor in both Department of Electrical Engineering and Biomedical Engineering at Michigan State University since Fall 2021. In between August 2020- August 2021, I was a Postdoctoral Research Associate in Dr. Chris Contag's Lab at Institute of Quantitative Health Science and Engineering, MSU. Before joining MSU, I received my Ph.D. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, in August 2020, under the guidance of Prof. Dr. Ian F. Akyildiz. In 2013, I received my M.Sc. degree from Koc University, Istanbul, Turkey, under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Ozgur Baris Akan. In 2011, I graduated from Electrical and Electronics Engineering at Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey as university valedictorian.

From September 2014 until November 2014, I worked at Aalto University, Helsinki, Finland as a visiting researcher, focusing on the impacts of social behavior on bacterial chemotaxis channels for molecular communication. From May 2016 to July 2016, I worked at University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway as a visiting researcher on the gateways among bio-nanothings networks.

My research is in the areas of wireless communication and networking, more specificaly Molecular Communications and Internet of Bio-NanoThings, and their applications to healthcare.

Honors and Awards

NSF Student Travel Grant for NSF BiotICC Workshop, January 2020.
Invited Participant, 2019 Rising Stars in EECS, hosted by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Oct. 29 - Nov. 1, 2019.
Selected for 2019 iREDEFINE Workshop in conjunction with ECEDHA Annual Meeting, Tucson, Arizona, March 23 - March 25, 2019.
Reseacher of the Year Award, Broadband Wireless Networking Laboratory, Georgia Tech, 2018.
Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor Award 2018 within the School of ECE at Georgia Tech.
ECE Outstanding Graduate Teaching Assistant Award, Georgia Tech, 2018.
Selected to participate to The NSF I-Corps Sites Program at Georgia Tech, December 2017.
Fellowship for Graduate Students by Turkish Scientic and Technical Research Council (TUBITAK), 2011-2013.
Distinguished Graduate Scholarship awarded by Koc University, Turkey, 2011-2013.
Graduated valedictorian from Middle East Technical University (METU). Turkey, 2011.
EE493/494 Engineering Design Course Best Project awar, METU, June 2011.
Bulent Kerim Altay prize from Electrical and Electronics Engineering Department, METU ( Fall 2007,Spring 2008, Fall 2008,Spring 2009, Fall 2009,Spring 2010).

Email:unluturk@msu.edu
Office: Institute of Quantitative Health Science and Engineering,
775 Woodlot Dr. Room 3118
East Lansing, MI 48824

Research

Strong and CO2 Consuming Living Wood For Buildings - ARPA-E HESTIA Project

This project is a collaboration between Purdue University and Michigan State University. We develop a transformational “living” wood with the strength of steel, a self-healing capability, and combined carbon-sequestering benefits from wood and microbes. The living wood captures CO2 during its growth, manufacturing, and use. By leveraging microbe activities, the manufacturing of living wood largely eliminates the use of harsh chemicals commonly used to treat and modify it. The right microbes fill the wood pores while capturing CO2 into strong biomaterials, significantly strengthening the wood scaffold and promoting self-healing. Manufacturing living wood is inherently scalable and will promote healthy forest management and a national bioeconomy.

Team

Purdue University: Dr. Tian Li, Dr. Eva Haviarova, Dr. Fu Zhao

Michigan State University: Dr. Jinxing Li, Dr. Gemma Reguera, Dr. Greg Bonito

Molecular Communication

Molecular Communication is a bio-inspired wireless communication paradigm for interfacing with biological systems, where information transfer occurs by exchange of molecules.

Internet of Bio-NanoThings

The IoBNT is a heterogeneous network of electronic and biological devices, called Bio-NanoThings, communicating through different means, ranging from electromagnetic waves and coupling, electrical and mechanical stimulation, to molecular communication.

Publications

Journals

Akyildiz, I. F., Ghovanloo, M., Guler, U., Ozkaya-Ahmedov, T., Rather, P., Sarioglu, A. F., Unluturk, B. D., "PANACEA: An Internet of Bio-NanoThings Application for Early Detection and Mitigation of Infectious Diseases," IEEE Access, vol. 8 pp. 140512-140523, July 2020.
Akyildiz, I. F., Chen, J., Ghovanloo, M., Guler, U., Ozkaya-Ahmedov, T., Pierobon, M., Sarioglu, A. F., Unluturk, B. D., "Microbiome-Gut-Brain Axis as a Biomolecular Communication Network for the Internet of Bio- NanoThings," IEEE Access, vol. 7, pp. 136161-136175, September 2019.
Loscri, V., Unluturk, B. D., Vegni, A. M., "A Molecular Channel Model based on Upconversion Phenomenon," IEEE Transactions on Communications, vol. 66, no. 12, pp. 6247-6259, 2018.
Unluturk, B. D., Islam, M. S., Ivanov, S., Balasubramaniam, S., "Distributed Modulaton for Bacterial Nanonetworks," IEEE Transactions on NanoBioscience, vol. 16, no. 4, pp. 287-298, June 2017.
Unluturk, B. D., Akyildiz, I. F., "An End-to-end Model of Plant Pheromone Channel for Long Range Molecular Communications," IEEE Transaction on Nanobioscience, vol. 16, no. 1, pp. 11-20, 2017.
Unluturk, B. D., Balasubramaniam, S., Akyildiz, I. F., "The Impact of Social Behavior on the Attenuation and Delay of Bacterial Nanonetworks," to appear in IEEE Transaction on Nanobioscience, July 2016.
Unluturk, B. D., Bicen, A. O., and Akyildiz, I. F., "Genetically Engineered Bacteria-based BioTransceivers for Molecular Communication," IEEE Transactions on Communications, vol. 63, no.4, pp. 1271-1281, 2015.
Unluturk, B.D., Malak, D., Akan, O. B., "Rate-Delay Tradeoff with Network Coding in Molecular Nanonetworks," IEEE Transactions on Nanotechnology, vol. 12, no. 2, pp. 120-128, March 2013.

Book Chapters

Pehlivanoglu, E. B., Unluturk, B.D., Akan, O. B., "Modulation in Molecular Communications: A Look on Methodologies," Modeling, Methodologies and Tools for Molecular and Nano-scale Communications, Edited by Junichi Suzuki, Tadashi Nakano, Michael J. Moore, Springer, 2014 (to be published).

Conferences

Sakkaff, Z., Unluturk, B. D., Pierobon, M., "Applying Molecular Communication Theory to Multi-Scale Integrated Models of Biological Pathways," in Proc. ACM Nanocom 2019, Dublin, Ireland, September 2019.
Nieto-Chaupis, H., Unluturk, B.D. "Can the Nano Level Electrodynamics Explain the Very Early Diagnosis of Diabetic Nephropathy in Type-2 Diabetes Patients?," in Proc. IEEE Nano 2017, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA, July 2017.
Yilmaz, S., Unluturk, B. D., Tekalp, A. M., "Video Streaming over Software Defined Networks with Server Load Balancing," in Proc. IEEE ICNC 2015, Anaheim, California, USA, February 2015.
Unluturk, B. D., Pehlivanoglu, E. B., Akan, O. B., "Molecular Channel Model with Multiple-Bit Carrying Molecules," in Proc. IEEE BlackSeaCom 2013, Batumi, Georgia, July 2013.

Under Review

In Preparation

Teaching

Instructor:

School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA
- ECE3710 Circuits: Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Summer 2018, Fall 2018
- Outstanding Graduate Instructor of the Year Award within the School of ECE, Spring 2018

Graduate Teaching Assistant:

School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA
- ECE6615 Sensor Networks: Spring 2015, Spring 2016, Spring 2019
- Outstanding Graduate Instructor of the Year Award within the School of ECE, Spring 2018