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Prof. Dr. Mustafa Verşan Kök - Curriculum Vitae

Prof. Dr. Mustafa Verşan Kök was born in 1960 in Çorlu, Tekirdağ, Türkiye. He completed his primary education at the Prague International School (Czech Republic). After graduating from Ankara Atatürk High School in Türkiye, he received his Bachelor’s degree in Petroleum and Natural Gas Engineering from Middle East Technical University (METU) in 1983. Between 1986 and 1987, he worked as a drilling engineer at SHELL Petroleum Company. In 1990, he completed his Ph.D. at METU.

In 1993–1994, Prof. Kök conducted postdoctoral research at the CNRS-INSA de Lyon Research Center (Institut National des Sciences Appliquées, Laboratoire de Thermochimie Minérale) and at ELF Petroleum Company in France. Between 1995 and 2000, he worked as a visiting researcher for three to six months annually at institutions such as the University of Salford (United Kingdom), Karlsruhe University (Germany), and Budapest University of Technology and Economics (Hungary). Between December 2014 and May 2015, he served as a visiting professor at CNRS-ICARE in Orléans, France.

From 2001 to 2006, Prof. Kök served as Advisor to the President of TÜBİTAK (The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Türkiye). During this period, he acted as the National Contact Point for Energy, Transport, and Environment under the European Union's 6th Framework Programme and served as a Program Committee Member in Brussels. Between 2023 and 2026, he chaired the Executive Committee of the Engineering Research Group (MAG).

Prof. Kök has authored 215 articles published in SCI-indexed journals and presented 83 papers at international conferences. He served as the coordinator for four projects under the European Union's 6th Framework Programme in the fields of energy and environment and took part as coordinator or researcher in six international projects and fifteen TÜBİTAK-funded projects. According to Web of Science (WoS) data, his publications have received over 6,150 citations, more than 7,050 citations according to Scopus, and over 8,850 citations according to Google Scholar. His h-index is 49 in WoS, 53 in Scopus, and 58 in Google Scholar.

Prof. Kök has been listed among the world’s top 2% most influential scientists in 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024 according to the lists published by Stanford University and Elsevier. Additionally, in 2022, 2023, and 2024, he was ranked among the top 0.05% most prolific scientists globally by ScholarGPS due to his outstanding scientific contributions, high-impact publications, and research quality.

Prof. Kök received the National Mining Development Foundation Science Award in 2007 and the Prof. Dr. Mustafa Parlar Foundation Science Award in 2008. Moreover, he has been honored with more than 20 major awards, including the TÜBİTAK Incentive Award in 1999 and the International Leading Scientist and Engineer Award from the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in 2008.

On 9 April 2023, he was awarded the Jubilee Medal by Azerbaijan State Oil and Industry University. He also received honorary doctorates from Kazan Federal University on 28 February 2019 and from Azerbaijan State Oil and Industry University on 5 November 2022.

Prof. Kök was elected as Dean of the Faculty of Engineering at METU in November 2015. He served as the Rector of Middle East Technical University (METU) between July 2016 and August 2024. As of December 2024, he has been appointed as the Rector of the Turkish-Japanese Science and Technology University. He is also a Full Member of the Turkish Academy of Sciences (TÜBA).