Cem Benar

Cem Benar is attending the Summer of HPC programme from Ozyegin University, Turkey. He is 22 years old and is currently in the last year of his BS degree. He plans to apply for a graduate programme in Computer Science or High Performance Computing with Data Science next year.

He is particularly interested in Machine Learning and Computational Neuroscience. In his opinion, progressions in the fields of artificial intelligence are directly connected with findings and developments in neuroscience. His purpose in life is to contribute to the understanding of how the brain works as well as integrating developments in neuroscience into the areas of artificial intelligence. He believes advances in neuroscience are crucial to build more natural robots to interact with and to achieve strong AI. For his goals, Cem has decided to specialize in these fields. Since these are diverse areas, he continues his education from as wide a perspective as possible. Therefore, he is currently a double major student in Electrical & Electronics Engineering and Computer Science. Thanks to this programme, he thinks that acquiring and improving skills in 3D visualization, parallel computing, and data analysis will be valuable.

During the programme, he will work on the project named Visualization Tool for Olfactory Bulb Data at CINECA in Bologna, Italy. He has chosen this project because he wants to have an experience in Computational Neuroscience. He believes that visualization of Neuroscience data will be a good experience to position himself to study in this field in the future. During the project, he will write a visualization tool that converts olfactory bulb data into readable data taken by Blender and ParaView. He will make 3D visualization on both Blender and ParaView. Then, he will compare the results to find the best visualization result and program for the data. He also plans to use parallel programming techniques to make the visualization faster.

All in all, Cem is very glad to become a participant of the vibrant community of Summer of HPC programme this summer. Cem also feels himself lucky to learn new cultures and history, have new friends, and eat delicious Italian food. He hopes that what he will learn throughout the programme will take him one step closer towards his goals.