Ahmet Yıldız

Who is Ahmet Yıldız?

Ahmet Yıldız is a Turkish professor of Physics and Molecular Cell Biology at the University of California, Berkeley. He has contributed significantly to the understanding of how motor proteins walk along their filaments.

He received a B.S. in physics from the Boğaziçi University, Istanbul, in 2001, followed by a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and a postdoctoral position at UCSF.

In 2003 Yildiz received the Foresight Distinguished Student Award for his study of the motion of the molecular motor myosin V. According to the Foresight Institute: "The Distinguished Student Award recognizes the college graduate or undergraduate student whose work is deemed most notable in advancing the development and understanding of molecular nanotechnology." The award was presented during the Foresight Conference on Molecular Nanotechnology, October 10–12, 2003, in San Francisco. The Foresight Institute Distinguished Student Award was created in 1997, and is awarded annually.

Yildiz was awarded the 2005 GE & Science Prize for Young Life Scientists.

Yildiz currently teaches lower-division physics at University of California, Berkeley.