Burcu Ayşen Ürgen

Burcu Ayşen Ürgen
Associate Director of UMRAM
Director of ASBAM
Chair of the Department of Neuroscience
Assistant Professor at UMRAM
Assistant Professor at Department of Psychology
Bilkent University
+90 312 290 3091 (UMRAM) or +90 312 290 1807 (Psyc)
Aysel Sabuncu Beyin Arastirmalari Merkezi Bilkent University Bilkent, Ankara, 06800, Turkey
Dr. Ürgen received her PhD in Cognitive Science from University of California, San Diego (USA) in 2015 under the supervision of Professor Ayse P. Saygin. Prior to her PhD, she did her BS in Computer Engineering at Bilkent University, and MS in Cognitive Science at Middle East Technical University. Following her PhD, she worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Neuroscience, University of Parma (Italy), with Professor Guy A. Orban.
Dr. Ürgen’s primary research area is human visual perception with a focus on biological motion and action perception. In addition to behavioral methods, she uses a wide range of invasive and non-invasive neuroimaging techniques including fMRI, EEG, and intracranial recordings to study the neural basis of visual perception and cognition. Her research commonly utilizes state-of-the-art computational techniques including machine learning, computer vision, and effective connectivity. Besides her basic cognitive neuroscience research, Dr. Ürgen also pursues an interdisciplinary research between social robotics and cognitive neuroscience to investigate the human factors that lead to successful interaction with artificial agents such as robots.
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Personal Website: 

Cognitive Computational Neuroscience Lab (Ürgen Lab): 

Education

2009-2015Ph.D., Cognitive Science, University of California, San Diego (UCSD), CA, USA
2007M. S., Cognitive Science, Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey
2004B. S., Computer Engineering and Information Science, Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey

Professional experience

2015-...Postdoctoral researcher, Department of Medicine and Surgery, University of Parma, Parma, Italy
2009-2015Research and teaching assistant, Department of Cognitive Science, University of California, San Diego, CA, USA
2005-2009Research and teaching assistant, Cognitive Science Program, Informatics Institute, Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey

Awards

2016Travel Award, Organization for Human Brain Mapping (OHBM) Conference, Geneva, Switzerland
2015Fellowship, Summer Institute in Cognitive Neuroscience Course, Santa Barbara, CA
2015Travel Fund Award, Department of Cognitive Science, UCSD, La Jolla, CA (VSS & HRI meetings)
2014Dean of Social Sciences Travel Fund Award, UCSD, La Jolla, CA (VSS Meeting)
2014Travel Fund Award, Department of Cognitive Science, UCSD, La Jolla, CA (VSS Meeting)
2013Interdisciplinary Scholars Award, UCSD, La Jolla, CA