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• Bachelor of Science in Physics, Middle East Technical University, Ankara Turkey, 1999
• Master of Science in Physics, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY USA, 2002
• Doctor of Philosophy in Physics, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY USA, 2005

• Teaching Assistant at Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA Aug 1999-Dec 2000
• Research Assistant at Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA Dec 2000-Sep 2005
• Postdoctoral fellow at International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA/ISAS), Trieste, Italy Nov 2005-Nov 2006
• Assistant Professor at Middle East Technical University (METU/ODTÜ), Ankara, Turkey Nov 2006-present

Teaching assistant in

• Physics 213, Electricity and Magnetism, Fall 1999, Cornell University
• Physics 208, Electricity and Magnetism, Spring 2000, Cornell University
• Physics 217, Electricity and Magnetism (honors), Fall 2000, Cornell University
• Physics 480/680, Computational Physics, Spring 2004, Cornell University

• APS March Meeting, Indianapolis, USA March, 2002 Ab initio mechanical response: determination of the structure of the silicon divacancy
• Electronic Structure Conference, San Francisco, USA June, 2002 poster presentation
• APS March Meeting, Montreal, Canada March, 2004 Electron-optic phonon interactions in carbon nanotubes
• APS March Meeting, Los Angeles, USA March, 2005 Theory of vibrations in suspended nanotubes
• NanoItaly, Trieste, Italy May, 2006 Indium migration through a nanotube forest: fingerprinting the diffusing species by combining DFT and XPS data

RESEARCH EXPERIENCE

• Graduate Research Assistant, Cornell University. June 1999 - September 2005 with Professor Tomás Arias.
• Postdoctoral Fellow, SISSA/ISAS. November 2005 - November 2006 with Professor Stefano Baroni and Dr Stefano Fabris.
• Assistant Professor, Physics Department, Middle East Technical University. November 2006 - present.

I have worked on identifying mechanisms of mechanical loss in nano- and micro-scale oscillators. This included the studying of defect-related losses in silicon oscillators, electron-optic phonon and phonon-phonon interactions in nanotubes and continuum modeling of nanotube vibrations. I have applied atomistic models to materials science problems and nanotechnology employing techniques ranging from empirical potentials (Stillinger-Weber, EDIP and Tersoff-Brenner) to tight-binding to density functional theory. The density functional work involved DFT++, a code which is an Arias group initiave written in C++. I have helped develop and implement an atomic orbital/planewave mixed basis for this code.

I am currently working on density-functional simulations of photoemission signals of nanoscale systems in various environments such as C₆₀ molecules deposited on a Rhodium(100) surface.

RESEARCH INTEREST

I am interested in conducting research on application of density functional theory methods to solid state, materials science and nanotechnology problems. I would like to form a research group whose primary focus is on further development and applications of density functional theory that address problems of current interest. I will, however, remain open to extending my research to other calculation methods when appropriate for addressing relevant experimental issues. I am particularly interested in collaborations both with theoretical and experimental researchers.

PUBLICATIONS

1. ``Electron-phonon scattering in metallic single-walled carbon nanotubes'', by Ji-Yong Park, Sami Rosenblatt, Yuval Yaish, Vera Sazonova, Hande Üstünel, Stephan Braig, T.A. Arias, Piet Brouwer and Paul L. McEuen, Nano Lett. 4, 517-520 (2004).
   

2. ``A tunable carbon nanotube electromechanical oscillator,'' by V. Sazonova, Y. Yaish, H. Üstünel, D. Roundy, T.A. Arias and P.L. McEuen, Nature, 431, 284-287 (2004).
   

3. ``Ab initio mechanical response: internal friction and structure of divacancies in silicon,'' by H. Üstünel, D. Roundy and T.A. Arias, PRL, 94, 025503 (2005).
   

4. ``Modelling a suspended nanotube oscillator,'' by H. Üstünel, D. Roundy and T.A. Arias, Nano Lett., 5, 523, (2005).
   

5. ``Defect-controlled transport properties of metallic atoms along carbon nanotubes'' by Alexei Barinov, Hande Üstünel, Stefano Fabris, Luca Gregoratti, Lucia Aballe, Pavel Dudin, Stefano Baroni and Maya Kiskinova, PRL, 99, 046803 (2007).

6. ``Structural Properties and Stability of Nanoclusters'' by Hande Üstünel and Sakir Erkoc, invited review in Journal of Computational and Theoretical Nanoscience in press (2007)

7. ``Metallization of the C60/Rh(100) interface revealed by valence photoelectron spectroscopy and density functional theory calculations'', Abdou-Ciss Wade, Silvano Lizzit, Luca Petaccia, Andrea Goldoni, Djibril Diop, Hande \"Ust\"unel, Stefano Fabris, and Stefano Baroni

8. The self-consistent calculation of exchange enhanced odd integer quantized Hall plateaus within Thomas-Fermi-Dirac approximation
   
   G. Bilgec, H. Ustunel Toffoli, A. Siddiki and I. Sokmen, Physica E-Low-Dimensional Systems & Nanostructures 42, 1058-1061 (2010)

9. Structural, electronic and magnetic properties of BN nanotubes doped with Mn and Cr: exploring the potential for device technology
   
   H. Kokten, H. Ustunel and S. Erkoc, Journal of Computational and Theoretical Nanoscience 6, 926-932 (2009)







PhD Thesis

1. ``Quantitative prediction of elastic and anelastic phenomena on the nanometer scale,'' by H. Üstünel, PhD Thesis, (2005).