In 2001, the Turkish Academy of Sciences (TÜBA) introduced the Program of Awarding Young Scientists (GEBİP) to encourage successful young scientists in the fields of natural and social sciences, engineering and medicine. This year, Dr. Kaan Güven of the Physics Department; Assoc. Prof. Bahar Yetiş Kara of the Industrial Engineering Department, and Asst. Prof. Hatice Pınar Bilgin of the International Relations Department were among the 31 scientists to receive an Outstanding Young Scientist Award.

Kaan Güven earned his PhD in 1999 from Bilkent University before joining Prof. Von Klitzing's group at the Max-Planck Institut in Germany for two years. Since 2002, he has been with the Nanotechnology Research Center at Bilkent. His research interests include electromagnetic metamaterials, nanoelectronics, and photonics. He has published more than 40 articles in science citation index (SCI) journals. Dr. Güven received this award for his studies on metamaterials.

Bahar Yetiş Kara also received her PhD from Bilkent in 1999. She won the UPS-SOLA "Best Dissertation Award" in 2001. She worked at McGill University as a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow for two years before joining Bilkent University. Her research interests include hub location problems, hazardous materials transportation logistics, mathematical programming, and bi-level programming. She has published in the areas of scheduling, hub location and hazardous materials logistics.

Hatice Pınar Bilgin graduated in 2000 with a PhD in International Politics from the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, UK. She holds an MSc in Strategic Studies from the same school, and an MA in International Relations from Bilkent University where she has worked since 2000. The UK Political Studies Association awarded her the "Best Article Published in Politics in 2004," co-authored with Dr. Adam David Morton. She is the author of "Regional Security in the Middle East: A Critical Perspective," (Routledge, 2005) and associate editor of "Security Dialogue." Her research interests include critical approaches to security with a specific focus on security in the developing world.