PEOPLE

Ozgur Keles, Ph.D.

Associate Professor
Department of Mechanical Engineering and Engineering Science,

University of North Carolina State at Charlotte, NC

[email protected]

Bio: Dr. Keles is an Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Engineering Science, University of North Carolina at Charlotte. He received B.S. and M.S. degrees from the Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering at Middle East Technical University, and Ph.D. from the School of Materials Engineering at Purdue University. Following, he joined the Illinois Institute of Technology as a research associate, where he investigated reliability of ceramics and pharmaceutical materials. His current research interests are artificially intelligent automatic discovery of nanocomposites, multi-scale additive manufacturing, reliability, informatics, and virtual reality engineering education, funded through NSF CAREER, NSF MRIs, National Endowment for the Arts, and industrial partners. Keles is also a photographer and digital artist who uses aesthetically appealing images and computer visualizations to aid student learning and foster creativity in engineering students.

Postdoctoral researchers

Swapnil Bamane (2025)

Prathamesh Deshpande, Ph.D. (2022-2024)

Machine learning approaches for accelerated reactive molecular dynamics investigation of quantum dot thermosets: synthesis, structure, and mechanical characterization

Ph.D. students

I am looking for three Ph.D. students who can work on molecular dynamics, finite element, and additive manufacturing of nanocomposites, ceramics, and polymers. In addition to these techniques, understanding of fracture mechanics, recycling, quantum dot synthesis, and machine learning is preferred. If you are interested, you can send your CV to [email protected].

MS students

Past Members:

Timothy Tan

Size effects characterization of Ti64 beams and lattices using selective laser melting, 2024.
■ Outstanding graduate student, Materials
Engineering Program, SJSU.
■ SJSU College of Graduate Studies, GRAD
SLAM 2nd place winner

Robert Chan-Jobe

Molecular dynamics investigation of toughening
mechanisms in quantum dot nanocomposites, 2024.

Andres Duarte

Automatic discovery of quantum dot nanocomposites. 2024.

Tiffany Alcantara

Reliability of biomimetic additive manufactured thermoplastic composites, 2024.

Skhandesh Srinivasan Ganesh Iyer

Mechanics of additively manufactured short-fiber-reinforced composites, 2022.

Suryanto Phienanda

Transfer learning for prediction of fracture strength in brittle composites, co-advised with Birsen Sirkeci-Mergen, 2021.

Andrew Dina

Processing and characterization of Ceria-Zirconia containing graphene quantum dots, 2020.

Yosune Casana

Additive manufacturing of textured aluminum oxide
ceramics, 2020.

Shreeya Mahadevaswamy and
Mustafa Yavuz

Analysis of publications in material science using natural language processing, co-advised with Birsen Sirkeci-Mergen, 2020

Christopher Strawn and Yinchuan
He

Identifying Strongest Porous Materials Using Machine Learning Models, co-advised with Birsen Sirkeci-Mergen, 2020.

Praneeth Varma Alluri

Improving the performance of machine learning for
predicting fracture strength of porous ceramics and glasses, co-advised with Birsen Sirkeci-Mergen, 2019.

Eric H. Anderson

The effect of porosity on mechanical properties of fused deposition manufactured polymers and composites, 2019.
■ CoE Donald Beall Student Award for Engineering
Accomplishment, 2019.

Alex K. Cress

Effect of recycling on the strength and mechanical reliability of additively manufactured ABS, 2019

Cheng-Lun Wu

Effect of porosity and Bouligand structure on mechanical behavior of fused deposition modeled ABS, 2019. Ph.D. student at Arizona State University

Stephanie Luke

Effect of fiber content and fiber orientation on fracture behavior of FDMed continuous-glass-fiber-reinforced nylon, 2019.

David Soares

Mechanical behavior of hierarchical 3D printed continuous glass fiber reinforced nylon, 2019.

Saishruthi Swaminathan and Tejash
Shah

Machine Learning Models for Prediction Fracture
Toughness of Porous Materials, co-advised with Birsen Sirkeci-Mergen, 2018.

Ghazal Mowlavi

Effects of build orientation on the mechanical behavior of POLYJET printed acrylic-based polymers, 2018.

–11 Senior Design Projects Supervised with 23 Undergraduate Students

2022, Gabriella Sandoval, Cameron Ojeda in collaboration with NASA.
2021, Iman Bayat
2021, Dana Morrar and Akram Al-Zughoul
2020, Anthony Cerezo and Toni Liang
2020, Andrian Tantiono and Szu Ning Tung
2020, Dishan Perera
2019, Crystal Pereira and Janaye Marshall
2018, Ruchi Gaur, Shreejit Padmanabhan, and Matthew Linzmeyer, Sponsored by Jabil Inc.
2017, Barry Mulingtapang, Nicholas Tomas, and Jimmy Huynh, Sponsored by Jabil Inc.
2017, Pamela Rochelle Ong, Kalkidan Zewdu, and Daniel Fok, Sponsored by Jabil Inc.
2016, Skhandesh Srinivasan and Timothy Langston, Sponsored by Jabil Inc.

–26 Undergraduate Research Students Supervised

2022-24, Ismet Gurleroglu, Rafael Padilla
2021, Benjamin Ard, Nasheed Zarif
2020, Joseph Drapal, Jia Pelpa, Jinann Alzaghari
2019, Julian Degery, Andrew Dale Sy, Afrah Siddiqi, Vincent Brubaker-Gianakos
2018, Mina Tavakolzadeh (Ph.D. student at Texas A&M University), Ruth Sosa, Khao Bao,
Nedah Basravi, Joe Lau
2017, Rachel Mixon, Jordan Helledy, Julio De Pereda, Lisette Romero, Jimmy Huynh
2016, David Macias, Caleb Blevins, Daniel Fok
2015, Nicholas Barcenas, Daniel Sprys

–3 High School Students Supervised

2023, Ayan Bhatia
2018, Julia Hunt
2017, Arvind Kumar