A little about me!

I was born and went to school in Shrewsbury, Shropshire (some 21+ years ago!) I left to study Electrical and Electronic Engineering at Birmingham University from where I received both my BSc. and PhD. While at Birmingham I met a young Turkish lady called Gunes and we were married in 1983. Our daughter, Derya, was born in 1985. This picture (194K) shows them on a recent visit to Birmingham.

For some years after leaving university, I worked in the Black country area doing everything from electronics design of both analogue and digital equipment, to writing software and providing customer support. Later, in Turkey, I worked as an Assist. Prof. at METU's (Middle East Technical University) Marine Sciences Research Institute. I have also worked on a contract for TRT (Turkish Radio Television) computerising their operations, and given graduate classes on Computer Architecture in METU's electronics department.

I took up my present appointment as an Assistant Prof. in the Computer Eng. Dept. at Bilkent in 1987. I now teach the first year "Algorithms and Programming" classes (CS101 & CS102) and offer a graduate class in "Information Retrieval" CS533. My research interests center on understanding the workings of the human mind and include AI/Cognitive Science, Information Retrieval and Computer-Aided-Education.

In my spare time I work! I used to take lots of photos, here's a few samples Sensitive Reflections and Gateway to Summer. I like playing tennis and drinking lots of tea and coffee (here's me at a famous tea party!)

(c) 1995 David Davenport