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The Turkish partner of the MEDACORNET project supported by TUBITAK is Istanbul Technical University. The activities of the project in Turkey are coordinated and let by Dr. Canan Urhan. The other researchers in the 3-year long project are Prof. Dr. Esra Çapanoğlu Güven, Dr. Fatma Duygu Ceylan and Prof. Dr. Beraat Özçelik from Food Engineering, Prof. Dr. Şebnem Burnaz from Management Engineering, Assoc. Dr. Şeyda Serdar Asan from Industrial Engineering and Prof. Dr. Ahmet Suerdem from Istanbul Bilgi University.
The project will provide a stakeholder analysis of the acorn economy in Turkey through an acorn value chain analysis. Furthermore, a comprehensive systematic review of the relationship between Mediterranean diet and diseases in all Mediterranean countries will be presented. In addition, comprehensive market and consumer research will be conducted and business model alternatives will be developed for various acorn-based foods (such as flour, bread, crackers, pasta, tea and coffee substitutes) to be developed during the project.
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Dr. Canan Urhan
Principle Investigator
About
Dr. Canan Urhan received her PhD in Management-Organization. She has been a faculty member in the Business Administration departments of various foundation universities for more than 10 years. As a TUBITAK 2219 scholar, she was a Visiting Researcher at Goldsmiths, Political Economy Research Center and UCL Institute of Advanced Studies. As of February 2023, she has been working as a Researcher/MEDACORNET Project Coordinator at Istanbul Technical University, Faculty of Chemistry-Metallurgy, Department of Food Engineering. She is involved in all research activities related to the tasks in the project. She is responsible for the coordination of the research team and the Turkish part of the activities within the project consortium.
Prof. Dr. Esra Çapanoğlu Güven
CO-ıNVESTIGATOR
About
Prof. Dr. Esra Çapanoğlu Güven is a faculty member at ITU Food Engineering Department. She has been involved in many international research projects. She is a member of the Turkish Academy of Sciences. She won the “Most Cited Researcher” Award in the category of Agricultural Sciences in Clarivate 2022. She continues her research at the Institute of Food Science and Human Nutrition at Leibniz University with the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Georg Forster Research Fellowship. She is working on a systematic review of the prevalence of diet-related and non-communicable non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in Mediterranean countries where the adoption of an acorn-based diet may play a role in disease management, including a gender perspective, and the relationship between the identification of descriptive characteristics of food products and consumer tests.
Prof. Dr. Ahmet K. Suerdem
CO-ıNVESTIGATOR
About
Prof. Dr. Ahmet K. Suerdem is a faculty member at Istanbul Bilgi University, Department of Business Administration. He has been a Visiting Researcher at Paris V Department of Social Anthropology, UCLA and UCI Departments of Marketing and Senior Visiting Researcher at LSE Department of Psychology and Behavioral Sciences. He specializes in qualitative and quantitative research methods. He is working on the analysis of data collected for marketing purposes in Turkey and other partner countries in the MEDACORNET project.
Prof. Dr. Huriye Şebnem Burnaz
CO-ıNVESTIGATOR
About
Prof. Dr. Huriye Şebnem Burnaz is a faculty member at ITU Department of Management Engineering. She has worked as a researcher and researcher in many European Union funded and international researches. She is a member of ITU Foundation Board of Trustees. She served as the Director of ITU GİNOVA (Entrepreneurship and Innovation) Application and Research Center between 2014-2022. She has many international, national academic and non-academic publications and referees in scientific journals. She is a member of Academy of Marketing Science (AMS), Marketing and Marketing Research Association (PPAD) and Turkish Researchers Association (TÜAD). She is working in the MEDACORNET project to develop communication strategies and business models in acorn marketing.
Prof. Dr. Beraat Özçelik
CO-ıNVESTIGATOR
About
In 1990, Beraat Özçelik graduated from Ege University, Department of Food Engineering and received her MSc and PhD degrees from Istanbul Technical University, Department of Food Engineering. She completed her postdoctoral studies at the Department of Food Science and Technology, Ohio State University, USA and has authored many national and international publications. Her main areas of expertise include functional food and nutraceutical production and their health effects, nano-encapsulation and bioavailability of food ingredients. Prof. Dr. Beraat Özçelik has been involved in many EU projects as Turkey coordinator or researcher and has also carried out TUBITAK and other national projects. In addition to being a member of Turkish Food Codex Committees and scientific committees of some private foundations, she has been on the editorial boards of many scientific journals and has served on the organizing boards of international congresses.
Doç. Dr. Şeyda Serdar Asan
CO-ıNVESTIGATOR
About
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Şeyda Serdar Asan is a faculty member at ITU Department of Industrial Engineering. She has numerous national and international publications on product and service value chains, fuzzy sets, decision making systems and engineering education. Within the scope of MEDACORNET project, she is working on mapping the acorn value chain and modeling product supply forecasting.
Dr. Fatma Duygu Ceylan
CO-ıNVESTIGATOR
About
Prof. Dr. Fatma Duygu Ceylan is currently working at ITU Food Engineering Department. Her research interests are Food Biotechnology, Food Chemistry and Fruit and Vegetable Technology. In the MEDACORNET project, she is working on the reference study for the descriptive analysis method to be applied for food products to be prepared within the scope of the project, panel organization and preparation stages for consumer tests.
Project Scholars
Elif Gülin Pakel
TÜBİTAK project fellow (NOVEMBER 2023-JANUARY 2024)
About
Elif Gülin Pakel is an undergraduate student of ITU Environmental Engineering. Within the scope of the acorn harvest sampling and tree data collection phase of the project, she carried out tasks such as photographing different tree species, collecting coordinates and various measurement data, continuous monitoring, and measuring and organizing the amount of harvest for two months in ITU Ayazağa campus in coordination with Assoc. Prof. Dr. Şeyda Asan.
Emre Can Altuntaş
TÜBİTAK STAR Fellow (February 2024 – June 2024)
About
Emre Can Altuntaş is an ITU Management Engineering student. He participated in the project as a TUBITAK Project Scholar. He provides support to the project in various areas in coordination with the project coordinator Canan Urhan.
Hilmi Tunahan Akbuğa
TÜBİTAK STAR Fellow (JANUARY 2025 – ONGOING)
About
Hilmi Tunahan Akbuğa is a student of ITU Ship and Marine Technology Engineering. He is also a double major in Management Engineering. He participated in the project as a TUBITAK Star Project Scholar. He provides support to the project in various areas in coordination with the project coordinator Canan Urhan.