Muhammet Sakiroglu

Year of Graduation: 2009

Major Professor: E. Charles Brummer

Tell us about your background prior to starting graduate work at UGA.

I was born and grew up in eastern Turkiye and completed my BS from Harran University in 2000. I received Turkish National Education Scholarship for pursuing MS and PhD in the USA. After an intensive English Program, I  started my MS in Iowa State University in 2003 completed in 2004 majoring Plant Breeding.

Current occupation and job responsibilities:

I am currently a full professor at Alparslan Turkeş Science and Technology University in Adana/Turkiye. I am performing reserach on forage genetics and genomics. I am also teaching several graduate and undergraduate courses  and mentoring graduate students.

What do you do in a typical work week in your current job?

Teaching, mentoring graduate students, writing grant proposals, writing and evaluating manuscripts and books are irregularly occupy my timetable depending on the deadlines.

If you could go back in time and give your younger self advice about graduate school, what would it be?

I would take several coding courses to improve my computational skills and would stay in grad school a year longer.

What do you remember best/miss most about your time at UGA?

I have several things to mention here. We had a wonderful research community at CAGT building and I definitely miss that. Athens was culturally rich, wonderful town to live. We also lived on campus and my apartment would have a nice view of intramural field where UGA Redcoat Marching Band practiced daily. My son was 4-7 years old at the time and we would watch them practice sometime.

Do you have anything you would like to share about your family, hobbies, or other interests?

I am married with three boys and my oldest son is in college now. We as a family love to travel and do long road trips as much as we can.