TÜBA Member Prof. Namık Kemal Aras Passed Away
TÜBA Honorary Member Prof. Namık Kemal Aras passed away on April 19, 2024. We wish Allah's mercy to Prof. Namık Kemal Aras, former Atomic Energy Authority President and Chemical Engineer, and our condolences to his family and the academic community. Prof. Aras' funeral was buried in Küçük Ayazağa Cemetery after a ceremony attended by many scientists, including TÜBA President Prof. Muzaffer Şeker, TÜBA Members Prof. Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu and Prof. Hüseyin Yıldırım and Marmara University Faculty Member and President of the Turkish Chemical Society Prof. Bahattin Yalçın.
Who is Prof. Namık Kemal Aras?
Born on November 15, 1935 in Kızılcaören village of Tokat-Reşadiye District, he completed primary school in this village and then came to Ankara. After graduating from Ankara University, Faculty of Science, Department of Chemical Engineering, Prof. Aras completed his doctoral studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1959 as Türkiye's first NATO foreign doctoral scholarship recipient on the subject of "the reaching distances and energies of the products of the splitting of the atomic nucleus". In 1966, Dr. Aras joined METU as an assistant professor, becoming an associate professor in 1968 and a professor in 1973. During his years at the university, he served as vice rector, dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and head of the Chemistry Department. In addition to his work at the university, he served as Director of the Ankara Nuclear Research Center in 1978-79 and as Vice President and Deputy President of the Turkish Atomic Energy Authority in 1982-85. In addition to his work in Türkiye, he conducted research and lectured at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in 1964-66, at the University of Maryland in 1971-73 and 1979-82, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1992-93, and for short periods at universities in Belgium, Germany, Denmark, Taiwan and many other countries. Prof. Aras has published more than 100 original articles in well-known journals, especially in foreign journals, and presented his work in 160 international conferences, and his work has been cited nearly 1500 times. The book "Trace Element Analysis of Food and Diet", co-authored with Yavuz Ataman, was published by the Royal Society of Chemistry in 2006. Prof. Aras was awarded the TÜBİTAK Science Award in 1984, the Turkish Chemical Society Science Award in 1992, and also became an Honorary Member of the Turkish Chemical Society, a Full Member of the Turkish Academy of Sciences in 1996, a Council Member of the Turkish Academy of Sciences in 1998, a Board Member of the Association of Asian Academies of Sciences in 2000, and Secretary General of the Association of Asian Academies of Sciences in 2004.