3 BS Alumni

Gözde (IE) is a Data Scientist at Rabobank, which is one of the largest banks in the Netherlands, operating in 38 countries around the world. She works on projects to generate AI solutions to better serve the corporate and the private clients while increasing profitability of the bank.

When she was a junior at Ozyegin University, she had an internship focused on branch workforce optimization in San Diego, California where she had the opportunity to apply her academic knowledge to real case. In her senior year, she continued taking selective courses in the field of data science and graduated from Ozyegin University in 2015 as the valedictorian of her class.

After spending two years as a data scientist in finance sector, she pursued a master's degree in Business Analytics and Operations Research from Tilburg University. She then joined Nielsen, where she improved the marketing budget optimization software and implemented it for various firms in countries such as Brazil, Japan, Canada. Since 2020, she have been working at Rabobank on projects such as identifying the best next product for corporate clients or predicting customer churn, where she employs various machine learning algorithms.

In addition to developing the models, she ensures their implementation in a scalable manner to be used in business decisions. Alongside her projects, she supports other data scientists who would like to improve their coding skills by preparing training sessions and workshops.

Asya (IE) completed her bachelor’s degree with a double major in Industrial Engineering and International Business Administration and Trade at Ozyegin University. During her time at Ozyegin, she excelled academically while actively involved in various extracurricular activities. She served as a Teaching Assistant for several courses and actively participated in the TUSIAD Sustainability Development Forum. She started being involved in research projects and publications. Furthermore, she took on leadership roles as a board member and president of the Outdoor Sports Club, fostering a sense of community and promoting an active lifestyle among her peers. She is also an alumni of the Turkish Entrepreneurship Foundation.

Continuing her education, Asya pursued a master’s in Operations Research at North Carolina State University. During her time at NC State, she took on leadership roles within the Turkish Students Association, serving as vice president and president. Her academic contributions and dedication were recognized through various awards, including the College of Engineering Graduate Merit Award 2019, the University Graduate Fellowship 2019, and the ISE Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award 2023.

Currently, she is pursuing a Ph.D. in Transportation Systems, Civil Engineering at NC State, with an anticipated graduation in August 2023. Her research areas include Sustainable Transportation Systems, Humanitarian Logistics, Network Optimization, and Data Analytics. Her Ph.D. thesis focuses on traffic incident response network design, routing optimization, and incident hot-spot prediction. Starting in the fall of 2023, Asya has been offered a tenure-track Assistant Professor position in Business Analytics at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, New York.

Berke Söylemezoğlu (IE) works as a brand manager at P&G. Giving great importance to the social activities provided by the university during his student period, Berke played in 5 theater plays with the OzU Chamber Theater in the first 3 years of his OzU adventure and participated in festivals. Then, he became the president of the OzU Operations Research Club, which he founded with his friends. The club has become the most active and crowded club in Özyeğin within 2 years.

Berke participated in volunteering programs in Lithuania for 2 months and Finland for 2 months during the summer periods as team leader. He had the chance to work with people from different countries and cultures. He also took part as a Peer Advisor in the Peer Advisor program, which Özyeğin University has set up for freshman students to get used to school. After graduation, he continued to share his experiences by recording podcasts and providing mentoring to university students.

Since Özyeğin University has adopted sectoral education as one of its main focuses, Berke had the opportunity to do a non-credit internships at Fiba Bank and GAP companies within the FIBA Group while he was a freshman. After that, he gained work experience at his internships at Philip Morris, Bayer and Coca Cola Beverage companies. As part of the graduation thesis course of the department of Industrial Engineering, he had the chance to work on a real problem that Unilever is experiencing and found a solution to the problem with the support of our academics.

In the Spring semester of 2020, Berke started as a Business Analyst at Deloitte Consulting company and then moved to P&G as Brand Manager, still continues to work in this position.