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Since the age of four, Çağan Şekercioğlu was always interested in nature and the world around him.
“I grew up weird,” Şekercioğlu said. “Kids were into playing soccer, and all I wanted to do [was] lose myself in nature and find bugs.”
Now a professor of biology at the U, Şekercioğlu credits this early interest in science to his being awarded Turkey’s highest honor in science.
The TÜBİTAK Special Award in Science is reserved solely for scientists from Turkey working abroad. This criteria includes Turkish researchers from Europe, North and South America, Asia and Australia all working on different scientific endeavors.
The prize was awarded to Şekercioğlu for his work in the Aras River Wetlands in Turkey. This wetland is home to a number of endangered species, as well as many types of birds. More than 40 percent of Turkey’s bird species and land animals have been recorded in this area alone. Şekercioğlu launched a petition on the website savearas.org to collect signatures in favor of preserving the wetland.
Şekercioğlu also boasts a large résumé of awards for his work apart from the TÜBİTAK Special Award, including Turkey’s first Wetland Science Award, but he finds being able to teach one of the best parts of his job.
“I am a teacher. My work is heavily in the field and very active,” he said. “When I meet someone who has traveled from such large distances to be a part of my projects, I want to make sure they are able to learn from what I am doing.”
As a professor, Şekercioğlu has Ph.D. students help with his research at Red Butte Garden and Arboretum and at the Rio Mesa Center. He said the number of undergraduate students that cycle through the lab are also critical to the work he does.
“We depend so much on volunteers and all of the enthusiasm they bring,” Şekercioğlu said. “The undergrads in my lab are so important to participating in projects, entering data and making sure our projects stay up to date.”
Jessica Luviano, a junior in medical laboratory science, was surprised to hear of Şekercioğlu’s prize.
“It’s pretty cool that someone from the U won such a big award,” she said. “I think it is inspiring to see someone who could be my professor doing such noticeable work.”
Şekercioğlu grew up in Istanbul, Turkey and credits the city life, as well as his parents’ constant inspiration, for allowing him to pursue a career in science.
“My father quit his job as an accountant to follow his dreams and create the very first model airplane company in Turkey,” Şekercioğlu said. “He is a large inspiration to me because instead of playing it safe, he followed his passion and made his interests into reality.”
In regards to his mother, Şekercioğlu laughed when recounting the way she supported him.
“She took me to a psychiatrist because I was playing with fire and bringing all sorts of bugs and animals home,” he said. “Instead of stopping me from doing the things I loved, she instead would read to me from my father’s old encyclopedia about different animals. She read these descriptions to me until I had them memorized.”
After realizing the books that interested Şekercioğlu were written in English, he decided he would need to attend an American college to learn the language. He was admitted to Harvard where he completed undergraduate degrees in biology and anthropology.
After conducting independent research at Stanford University, Şekercioğlu relocated to Salt Lake City.
“Utah’s nature and national parks drew me as a faculty,” he said. “The university’s biology department is highly ranked, boasts a Nobel Prize winner and offered me the flexibility to do the type of research that I wanted.”
In his time at the U, Şekercioğlu has also been awarded the school’s first-ever Citizen Science Award for his work in Turkey, Ethiopia and Red Butte.
“I am very lucky to have been able to turn something that was my hobby and my passion into a full-time job,” Şekercioğlu said. “I do not think there is anything else I could be doing instead.”
@ArevaloStefani
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