IEEE Solid-States Circuits Magazine - Fall 2022 - 74

PEOPLE
In Step With Yildiz Sinangil
From Turkey to the Silicon Valley
R
Robert Pirsig wrote the book Zen and
the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
in 1974, and it still holds countless
messages relevant to this day:
You look at where you are
going and where you are and it
never makes much sense, but
then you look back at where
you have been, and a pattern
seems to emerge. And if you
project forward from that pattern,
then sometimes you can
come up with something.
If you had asked the 10-year-old
Yildiz what she would choose as her
profession, her answer would have
been, " A medical doctor working in
my hometown. " Little did I know
that my journey from Izmir, Turkey,
to Silicon Valley would take me
down quite a different path.
My interest in electrical engineering
blossomed during my high
school years thanks to the advanced
curriculum I received in natural
sciences. I graduated from my high
school as the top student in my
class. Getting a rank within the top
200 students among nearly 2 million
got me a spot in the Electrical
and Electronics Engineering Department
in Bogazici University, which
has been the top university and
department of study in Turkey for
many years.
Back in my freshman year in this
competitive department, I remember
how being one of four girls in my cirDigital
Object Identifier 10.1109/MSSC.2022.3205466
Date of current version: 11 November 2022
74
vehicles team. The semester when I
was as an exchange student showed
me that I had the necessary skills of
adaptability and flexibility to be successful
in a new cultural, social, and
intellectual atmosphere.
I was fortunate enough to get
Yildiz with the University of Texas at Austin
solar car team.
cuit class of 50 made me question my
choices. At the end of my junior year,
however, I got a 4.0/4.0 departmental
GPA and graduated in the top four.
I did not count on grades alone to
gain my admission to an Ivy League
graduate school. I aggressively tried
to make use of the resources available
to me in research and extracurricular
activities, exceeding the basic
requirements for an undergraduate
degree in electrical and electronics
engineering.
After following coherent sequences
of courses in electrical engineering
and natural sciences, I laid the
foundations for my chosen field of
study in circuit design. Spending the
fall semester of my junior year at the
University of Texas at Austin as an
exchange student stimulated me to go
for a Ph.D. degree in the United States.
I achieved a 4.0/4.0 semester GPA and
received reference letters from three
professors who volunteered to support
me on this path. Along with regular
coursework, I was active in the Solar
Steer Car mechanics group as well as
the 2008 Solorean Car design project
for the University of Texas solar
FALL 2022
IEEE SOLID-STATE CIRCUITS MAGAZINE
admitted to the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology (MIT) in Prof.
Anantha Chandrakasan's research
lab. During my master's degree studies,
I was chosen as the Irwin Mark
Jacobs and Joan Klein Jacobs Presidential
Fellowship scholar in 2010,
which is a prestigious fellowship
given to select students at MIT. I had
the privilege of being on the Microsystems
Annual Research Conference
organizing committee and received
the best presentation award in 2012.
In my free time, I loved being part of
the MIT ski club and explored almost
Yildiz on a ski trip to Verbier, Switzerland,
in 2015.
IEEE Solid-States Circuits Magazine - Fall 2022

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