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Huseyin Topaloglu
"I went to a very unusual high school, where research was highly encouraged," says Topaloglu, who arrived in Ithaca last summer as an assistant professor in applied operations research and systems engineering. "The school was located on a university campus, and we spent most of our time helping professors with their research. It was really exciting to grow up in a research environment, to get to see all these people when I was still at a young age. That’s when I started to think of a career in academics." Topaloglu attended Istanbul’s Bogazici University, which had been founded by Americans, before going to Princeton to do his graduate work and then to Cornell, where he teaches undergraduate and graduate students. In his own work, he concentrates on transportation problems, building mathematical models to determine the most effective vehicle allocation decisions and optimize the performance of transportation systems. Already, his methodology has become the backbone of the Norfolk Southern and Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroads. "There are a lot of theoretical questions and a lot of mathematics involved in the work. That’s something I always enjoy," he says, before talking about other things he likes: watching films—Jean-Luc Godard is his favorite director—reading books, listening to music, and skateboarding. He misses sipping tea by the Bosporus but is happy to be in the United States. "In the end, the thing that makes you feel really good is going to a company site, making people believe in you, and then implementing your models. It’s a great balance between theory and application, and ultimately, you get to solve real problems." |
As a teenager growing up in Usak, which he jokingly calls a "small midwestern" town in Turkey, Huseyin Topaloglu got his first taste of scientific research.