Dual-Degree Master’s Program with Thesis Information Session – May 20, 2026

An online information event for prospective students about our "Cloud and Networking Infrastructures and High Performance Computing" Double-Degree Master's Program with Thesis, recently launched under the Information Systems Department of the METU Informatics Institute, will be held on Wednesday, 20 May 2026, between 15:00–16:00.

 

Our program offers students an international academic experience through a "2 universities – 2 years – 2 diplomas – 1 certificate" model, and provides the knowledge and skills required to establish a business in Europe through innovation and entrepreneurship courses and a hands-on summer school.  

 

Admitted students who are EU or Turkish citizens are expected to receive full scholarships covering the entire tuition fee. Additional scholarship opportunities to support living expenses are also available based on academic performance. 

 

METU is running this program jointly with Polytechnic University of Milan (Italy), Università di Trento (Italy), University of Rennes (France), KTH Royal Institute of Technology (Sweden), Aalto University (Finland), and Babeş-Bolyai University (Romania). Students may study one year at METU and one year at one of these universities. 

 

During the event, information will be shared about:

  • The academic structure of the program and the application process,
  • The European universities running the program jointly with METU
  • The opportunities provided to students by the EU-funded ACHIEVE project
  • Scholarships

 

The application deadline for the 2026-2027 Fall semester is 1 June 2026

 

Connection Link:

Microsoft Teams meeting

Meeting ID: 310 020 757 716 919

Passcode: Ek7PK2FH

Announcement Category

Kerem Yıldız, Development of The MiRHub Database: Mapping TCGA Data on SNV Presence and Differential Expression in miRNA-mRNA Duplexes

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) regulate gene expression post-transcriptionally through sequence-specific binding to target messenger RNAs (mRNAs). Single nucleotide variants (SNVs) can disrupt miRNA–mRNA interactions and contribute to human disease. We present miRHub, a comprehensive database that integrates miRNA–mRNA duplex information with 3′UTR SNV context using matched The Cancer Genome Atlas expression and genotyping data. The miRHub portal provides integrated views for mRNA expression, miRNA expression, and co-localizing SNVs with the corresponding miRNA–mRNA duplexes. As a use case, we report statistically significant differences in mRNA regulation between different sample types based on SNV-associated duplexes.

Date: 09.06.2026 / 13:00 Place: A-212

English

Nevin Şehbal Hekimoğlu, Generative Modeling of Strong Ground Motion Records Using Attention-Based Variational Autoencoders

This thesis proposes an attention-enhanced Variational Autoencoder for generating station-specific strong ground motion records. The model encodes three-component PEER NGA-West2 seismic acceleration waveforms as six-channel STFT spectrograms and learns compact latent representations through a convolutional encoder with an attention-based bottleneck. A station-aware latent sampling strategy produces site-specific synthetic recordings from limited per-station data. A structured evaluation framework is introduced in the scope of the thesis. This framework combines time-domain metrics and pseudo-spectral acceleration analysis through intensity-shape binning. Generated records are benchmarked with the evaluation framework against original recordings and SCEC Broadband Platform simulations across Southern California stations.

Date: 30.04.2026 / 14:30 Place: A-212

English

2026-2027 Fall Semester Graduate Applications – Cognitive Sciences PhD and Non-Thesis Master’s Interview Information

* Cognitive Sciences PhD Program: Interviews will be held online on Monday, April 20, 2026. (Interview invitations have been sent to the candidates' email addresses). 

* Cognitive Sciences Non-Thesis Master’s Program: Evaluations will be based on application files; no interviews will be conducted.

Announcement Category

Ata Seren, Analysis and Comparison of Static Application Security Testing Tools and Common Tool Mechanisms

This thesis presents a systematic evaluation of Static Application Security Testing (SAST) tools. Related studies mostly use synthetic codebases and per-vulnerability evaluation methods. In this study, both synthetic benchmarks and real-world intentionally vulnerable applications are tested against tools, along with per-issue evaluation. Conducted experiments measure various metrics and explain these results with reasons behind them. In addition to quantitative results, qualitative features and internal mechanisms of tools are examined to further explain results and observed performance differences. The results demonstrate the difference between evaluation models and tool effectivenes. Overall, thesis offers practical insights for SAST tool research and selection.

Date: 14.04.2026 / 11:00 Place: Cisco Lab

English

2026-2027 Fall Semester Graduate Applications – Interview Information for Multimedia Informatics Master’s (with Thesis) and PhD Programs

Multimedia Informatics Master's (with Thesis) and PhD program interviews will be held on Wednesday, April 15, 2026, in Meeting Room A-212 of the Informatics Institute. (Interview invitations have been sent to the candidates' email addresses.)

Announcement Category

2026-2027 Fall Semester Graduate Applications – Interview Information for Health Informatics (PhD and Non-Thesis Master) and Bioinformatics (Master with Thesis) Programs

Bioinformatics Master Program (with Thesis): Interviews will be held on Friday, April 17, 2026, at 11:00 AM in Classroom II-05 of the Informatics Institute. (Interview invitations have been sent to the candidates' email addresses).

Health Informatics Non-Thesis Master Program: Evaluations will be conducted based on application files; no interviews will be held.

Health Informatics PhD Program: Evaluations will be conducted based on application files; no interviews will be held.

Announcement Category

Muhammet Esat Kalfaoğlu, Multi-View Multimodal BEV Perception for Centerline-Centric Road Topology Understanding with Transformer Decoders

This thesis studies multi-view, multimodal BEV perception for centerline-centric road topology understanding in autonomous driving. It focuses on improving centerline detection within a transformer-decoder framework and examines how those gains propagate to topology reasoning. The work develops three stages: mask-based centerline prediction with directional supervision and mask-Bezier fusion, Bezier-driven decoder attention through multi-point and Bezier deformable attention, and geographically disjoint plus long-range multimodal evaluation. Experiments on OpenLane-V2 and OpenLane-V1 show strong camera-only and fused camera-LiDAR performance, supporting state-of-the-art road topology understanding under consistent protocols.

Date: 16.04.2026 / 14:00 Place: A-212

English

Ramal Hüseynov, Mutation-Centric Graph Networks: Integrating Local and Distal Genomic Context

Somatic mutations drive the transformation of normal cells into cancer. However,distinguishing driver mutations, which confer a selective growth advantage, from the vast background of neutral passenger mutations remains a critical challenge. To address this, we introduce a novel graph-based framework that constructs mutation-centric networks by leveraging longrange genomic interaction data. Our method models genomic intervals as nodes and their long-range interactions or overlaps as edges. Starting from a ’seed’ mutation, the graph expands iteratively, finding overlaps and interacting intervals to capture both local and distal genomic context. This architecture allows us to quantify a mutation’s topological influence, identify complex structural patterns (such as graph cycles), and assess proximity to known driver genes across variable ranges. Furthermore, this approach naturally generates embeddings for individual mutations, enabling the clustering of samples based on mutation profile similarity. Ultimately, by providing a comprehensive, interaction-aware view of the genomic landscape, our framework facilitates more accurate driver identification and improved patient stratification for personalized treatment.

Date: 13.04.2026 / 14:00 Place: B-116

English

2026-2027 Fall Semester Graduate Applications – Information Systems Graduate Programs Interview Information

Information Systems Master’s (Thesis/Without Thesis) and Doctorate Programmes interviews will be held on April 10 and 13, 2026. If there are any changes to the interview dates, candidates will be informed via email. Please check your emails regularly. (Interview information has been sent to candidates' email addresses.)

Announcement Category

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