Burak Kılıç

Ph.D. Candidate, Istanbul Technical University
Istanbul, Türkiye

Ph.D. candidate in Mechanical Engineering at Istanbul Technical University, combining materials science, manufacturing, and AI to solve real-world problems. My work spans computer vision, IoT, and big data — from AI-powered quality inspection systems to precision agriculture solutions.

I enjoy collaborating across disciplines, connecting industry needs with innovative research, and turning ideas into working systems. Always open to new opportunities, partnerships, and challenging projects at the intersectiokn of engineering and intelligent systems.

Experience

Işık University, Research Assistant, Istanbul 06/2018 – Present

• Assisted in the research of the granted BAP project: Development of an economical and innovative joining concept for hybrid materials that does not require filler material.
• Managed Materials Science Laboratory, Measurements and Instrumentation, and Mechanical Engineering Laboratory courses. Supervised students in the laboratory, and graded laboratory reports.
• Assisted in the development of new course materials and assignments by writing and revising course materials, and developing new assignments and assessments.

02/2018 – 06/2020 Saint-Michel French High School, Robotics Instructor, Istanbul

• Led weekly Robotics Club sessions focused on Arduino-based projects, electronic circuit design, and programming fundamentals.
• Guided students through hands-on problem-solving activities, fostering creativity, teamwork, and STEM skills development.

06/2017 – 01/2019 Turkish Standards Institution, Inspector, Istanbul

• Planned and executed inspections in accordance with instructions provided by TSE, harmonized standards (such as EN 81-1, EN 81-20, EN 81-70, etc.), and applicable legal regulations.
• Conducted thorough inspections to assess the safety, functionality, and compliance of the inspected equipment or systems. Documented inspection findings and prepared comprehensive reports.

02/2016 – 07/2016 Universal Certification, Welding Engineer, Istanbul

• Prepared and approved qualification documents, including Welding Procedure Specifications (WPS), Procedure Qualification Records (PQR), and Welder’s Test Certificates.
• Worked extensively with various welding codes and standards, such as AWS D1.1, EN 1090, and ASME BPVC.
• Conducted inspections and assessments to verify compliance with welding standards and codes.

09/2015 – 02/2016 Merberk Engineering, R&D Engineer, Istanbul

• Involved in an R&D project to create a 3D printer and subsequently a unique 3D Metal Printer.
• Successfully completed the development of the 3D printer, but the project was discontinued before creating the metal 3D printer due to a lack of grants or funding.

09/2014 – 09/2015 Mast Metal Steel Construction, Quality Control Engineer, Kocaeli

• Contributed to the establishment of the Quality Management System (QMS) at Mast Metal Steel Construction as the Management Representative.
• Conducted inspections after welding, demonstrating a strong interest in quality control.
• Worked closely with customers, primarily from IHI Corp., organizing inspections and planning NDT procedures.
• Delivered accurate quality records in accordance with Inspection and Test Plans (ITPs).

Education

2022 – Present Ph.D., Mechanical Engineering, Istanbul Technical University, GPA: 3.11/4.00
Relevant coursework: Computer Vision, Medical Image Computing, Big Data Technologies and Applications

2016 – 2022 M.Sc., Materials and Manufacture, Istanbul Technical University, GPA: 3.13/4.00
Thesis: Investigation of joining metals and fiber reinforced thermoplastic composites by hot pressing method

2014 – 2015 International Welding Engineer (IWE/EWE), Gedik Educational Foundation
Certified by the International Institute of Welding (IIW)

2008 – 2014 B.Sc., Mechanical Engineering, Bulent Ecevit University, GPA: 2.48/4.00

Projects

2025 – Ongoing SIPA: Smart Integrated Plant Assistant, Personal Project

• Developing an IoT-based precision agriculture system using ESP32 microcontrollers and environmental sensors (YL-69 soil moisture, DHT22 temperature/humidity, BH1750 light intensity, DS3231 RTC) to monitor conditions, enable automated irrigation, and track plant growth via periodic camera captures (ESP32-CAM).
• Implementing real-time data streaming with MQTT/Apache Kafka, storing historical measurements in Post-greSQL, and visualizing trends through Grafana dashboards for data-driven agricultural insights.
• Designing an alert mechanism to notify users of critical environmental changes, improving plant health and optimizing resource usage in alignment with precision farming principles.

2025 – Ongoing MARS: Marble Analysis & Robotic Slicing, Project Lead

• Developing an AI-powered marble inspection pipeline integrating a fixed imaging setup (industrial camera, lens, conveyor, lighting system) to preprocess, calibrate, and extract dimensionally accurate images for downstream segmentation and optimization tasks.
• Implementing multi-stage segmentation and optimization algorithms to generate cutting plans that minimize waste, presented to operators for selection.
• Deploying the system with real-time monitoring and a user interface on FastAPI, Docker and Streamlit, leveraging large-scale labeled data from expert marble selectors and operator feedback to iteratively improve model accuracy.

2024 MOOZE, Personal Project  —  Repository

• MOOZE is an open-source CLI app that interacts with OpenAI’s API to create and manage an AI assistant.
• The assistant is designed to respond in a user-specified style and help with questions related to a provided document(s).
• Key features include functionalities for managing files, vector stores, and threads to facilitate interactions with the AI assistant.

2024 ENGR4450 - Applied Artificial Intelligence Course Notes, Creator  —  Repository

• ENGR4450 - Applied Artificial Intelligence (AI), a course offered at Işık University.
• The repo contains six Jupyter notebooks (tutorials) prepared by me.

2023 Yet Another Earthquake Project (YAEP), Project Coordinator  —  Repository  / Paper

• Tools & frameworks used: Apache NiFi, Apache Kafka, Apache Spark, AWS S3, Elasticsearch, Kibana
• Coordinated an end-to-end project focused on earthquake visualization and correlation analysis with electric field data. Led the team in utilizing a suite of Big Data Tools to seamlessly acquire, integrate, preprocess, analyze, and visualize the data.
• Leveraged real-time data streaming, advanced analytics, and interactive visualization techniques to uncover significant relationships between earthquakes and electric field data.

2023 Multimodal MRI Data Segmentation Based on Swin-Unet, Personal Project  —  Repository  / Paper

• Tools & frameworks used: PyTorch, Swin-Unet, SimpleITK
• Studied automated medical image segmentation using the Swin-Unet model. Achieved accurate results through data preprocessing, training, and GPU acceleration.

2023 Age Regression from Brain MRI Images, Personal Project  —  Repository  / Paper

• Tools & frameworks used: Scikit-learn, SimpleITK
• Compared various regression models, this project aims to accurately estimate patients’ ages based on their brain MRI images, providing valuable insights into brain development, aging processes, age-related pathologies, and aiding in the early detection of neurodegenerative disorders in medical research and practice.

Weld Defect Detection Using U-Net, Personal Project  —  Repository  / Paper

• Tools & frameworks used: PyTorch, U-Net
• Utilized the GDXray dataset, specifically for weld X-ray images, and implemented the U-Net architecture.

2016 Flaw Detection in Radiographic Weld Images Using Morphological Approach, Personal Project  —  Paper

• Tools & frameworks used: MATLAB, Image Processing Toolbox
• Implemented an algorithm inspired by RS Anand and P Kumar’s research for flaw detection in radiographic weld images using a morphological approach. It aimed to provide an automated and robust method for flaw detection.

Technical Skills and Interests

Languages

Turkish (Native), English (Advanced)

Developer Tools & Frameworks

Git, Docker, Linux/Bash {i use vim btw :q!}, SQL, AWS, Apache NiFi, Apache Kafka, Apache Spark, Elasticsearch, Kibana, Grafana, PyTorch, TensorFlow, Keras, OpenCV, Scikit-Learn, Albumentations, FastAPI, Streamlit

Domains of Interest

Materials Science, Smart Manufacturing, Artificial Intelligence, Computer Vision, Big Data Applications, IIoT, Precision Agriculture, AIoT

Licenses and Certificates

• Driving Licenses: A, A1, A2, B, B1, D1, F, M
• CMAS ** SCUBA Diver
• PADI Advanced Open Water Diver (AOWD)
• Google Developers Machine Learning Bootcamp (Google–inzva, 2023)
• TensorFlow Developer Certificate (Google, 2023)
• CAPM Preparation Training (PMI TR–ITU, 2023)
• Introduction to Big Data with Spark and Hadoop (IBM, Coursera, 2023)
• Introduction to Apache NiFi | Cloudera DataFlow – HDF 2.0 (Udemy, 2023)
• Deep Learning Study Group (inzva, 2020)
• Elevator Inspector Personnel (TSE, 2017)
• Internal Auditor (KYS Consulting, 2014)
• IMS Auditor (ISO 9001, ISO 14001, OHSAS 18001) (KYS Consulting, 2014)

Last updated: August 2025