Ayşe Erzan

Ayşe Erzan was born in Ankara in 1949. After completing her secondary education in Istanbul, she pursued higher education in the United States, earning a B.A. from Bryn Mawr College in 1970 and a Ph.D. in physics from Stony Brook University in 1976. Erzan began her academic career at Middle East Technical University before joining Istanbul Technical University in 1977. During this period, she was actively involved in the peace and women's movements. Following the 1980 Turkish coup d'état, she lived abroad from 1981 to 1990, working and teaching at various institutions, including the University of Geneva, the University of Porto, the University of Marburg, and the University of Groningen. She also had a brief tenure as a research fellow at the International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste. Erzan returned to Istanbul Technical University in 1990 and continued her research at the Feza Gürsey Institute. She became an associate of the Turkish Academy of Sciences in 1995 and a full member in 1997. Her accolades include the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey science prize in 1997, the L'Oréal-UNESCO Award for Women in Science in 2003, and the Rammal Award in 2009. In recognition of her lifelong dedication to human rights, she was awarded the 2020 Andrei Sakharov Prize by the American Physical Society. Erzan is a member of The World Academy of Sciences and The Science Academy Society of Turkey, and serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Statistical Physics and European Physical Journal B.