People
Members of the Internet of Everything (IoE) Group
Prof. Ozgur Baris Akan, IEEE Fellow
Principal Investigator of IoE Group
Email: oba21[at]cam.ac.uk
Prof. Akan is the Chair Professor of Electronic and Communication Engineering and the Head of the Internet of Everything (IoE) Group at the Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge. He is also the AXA Chair Professor in Internet of Everything and the Founding Director of Centre for neXt-generation Communications (CXC) and the Director of Next-generation and Wireless Communications Laboratory (NWCL), Koç University. His current research interests are in wireless, space, quantum and biological communications, machine learning, information theory and IoE.
Visiting Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Cambridge, UK
Email: bortlek14[at]ku.edu.tr
Dr. Beyza Ezgi Örtlek completed her high school education at Ankara Fen Lisesi in Ankara, Turkey. She received double major degrees (dual full diploma), a B.S. in Electrical and Electronics Engineering and a B.S. in Molecular Biology and Genetics, from Koç University, Türkiye. She recently completed her Ph.D. in Electrical and Electronics Engineering at Koç University under the supervision of Prof. Özgür Barış Akan. She is currently a Visiting Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Internet of Everything (IoE) Group at the Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, UK.
Haofan Dong joined the IoE group at the University of Cambridge Department of Engineering as a Ph.D. student in 2023, supervised by Prof. Akan. He completed his MRes in Connected Electronic and Photonic Systems CDT (UCL based) in 2023. He received his BEng in Electronic and Computer Engineering from the University of Leeds and BEng in Communication Engineering from Wuhan University of Technology in 2022. Haofan’s research interests include integrated sensing and communication (ISAC), 6G, satellite communications, and space communications.
Hongbin Ni received his BEng degree in Mechatronic Engineering from the University of Manchester, UK, in June 2021, and his MSc degree in Biomedical Engineering from Imperial College London, UK, in September 2022. He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Engineering at the University of Cambridge, UK, under the supervision of Prof. Akan. His research focuses on developing particle-based communication transceivers for brain organoids.
Zhengyang Zhang joined the IoE Group as a PhD student in 2023. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Electronic Information Engineering from Beihang University, awarded in 2020, and a Master of Research degree in Connected Electronic and Photonic Systems from the University of Cambridge, completed in 2021.
Shaojie Zhang received his B.Sc. degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from University College London, UK, in June 2023, and his M.Phil. degree from the Department of Engineering, Electrical Engineering Division, University of Cambridge, in October 2024. He is currently pursuing his Ph.D. in the Department of Engineering, Electrical Engineering Division, University of Cambridge, under the supervision of Prof. Akan.
O. Tansel Baydas joined Cambridge as a Ph.D. student in 2024. He received his B.S. in Electrical & Electronics Engineering and Mathematics from Bogazici University in Istanbul, Turkey in 2024. His research interests are broadly in communication and information theory for biological and distributed systems.
Ayse Sila Okcu received her B.Sc. degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering, with a dual degree in Mathematics, from Koç University, Istanbul, Turkey, in June 2024. She is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering at the University of Cambridge, under the supervision of Prof. Ozgur Baris Akan. Her research interests include the Internet of Everything and bio-inspired communication systems, with specific interests in molecular communications, neural computations, and biological network modeling.
Houtianfu Wang (Tiff) joined University of Cambridge as a Ph.D. student in 2024. He received M.S. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from University of California, San Diego in 2024, and B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from The Ohio State University in 2022. He is currently a member in Internet of Everything group, under the supervision of Prof. Akan.
Hanlin Cai (Lance) received the B.Sc. degree from the Engineering College, National University of Ireland (Maynooth) in 2024, and the M.Phil. degree from the Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge in 2025, where he is currently pursuing the Ph.D. degree under the supervision of Prof. Akan. He is a recipient of the Cambridge Trust Scholarship, China CSC Scholarship and the Undergraduate Scholar Awards from top-tier AI conferences, including AAAI 2024 and ACM SIGKDD 2024. His research interests include wireless communication, federated learning, and the Internet of Agents.
Melih Sahin is a Ph.D. student in Engineering at the University of Cambridge. He joined the Internet of Everything (IoE) Group in October 2025 and is supervised by Prof. Akan. He received an M.S. in Electrical and Electronics Engineering with thesis in 2025 and a B.Sc. in Computer Engineering with a Mathematics minor and an AI track in 2024 at Koç University, after his first year of undergraduate studies at KAIST. His notable distinctions include an Intel ISEF 4th place Grand Award in Mathematics in 2018. His research interests cover Information Theory, Coding Theory, and Molecular Communication.
Fatih Efe Bilgen is a Ph.D. candidate in Engineering at the University of Cambridge, where he works under the supervision of Prof. Akan. He completed his B.Sc. in Electrical and Electronics Engineering with a dual degree in Mathematics from Koç University, Istanbul, Turkey, in June 2024, followed by an M.S. degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering in July 2025 from the same institution. His research focuses on advancing the Internet of Everything through innovative, bio-inspired approaches. This includes specialized work in areas such as Odor-based Molecular Communication (OMC), Internet of Plants, and Integrated Sensing and Communication (ISAC).
Final-year Master's Student, Koç University, Turkey
Email: ahmetkilic20[at]ku.edu.tr
Ahmet Burak Kilic completed his high school education Bilfen Kayseri High School, Kayseri, Turkey. He received his B.Sc. degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from Koç University, Istanbul, Turkey. He is also currently a senior student in Business Administration at Koç University, Istanbul, Turkey. He is pursuing his M.Sc. degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering at Koç University, under the supervision of Prof. Akan.
Fatih Merdan completed his high school education at Kırıkkale Science High School. He received his B.Sc. degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from Middle East Technical University. He is currently pursuing his M.Sc. degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering under the supervision of Prof. Akan at Koç University, Istanbul, Turkey.
Fourth-year Undergraduate Student, Boğaziçi University, Turkey
Email: boran.kilic[at]std.bogazici.edu.tr
Boran Aybak Kilic is a fourth-year student concurrently pursuing B.Sc. degrees in Electrical and Electronics Engineering and Physics at Boğaziçi University. He established a strong foundation in physics during high school, having been awarded multiple medals in the National Physics Olympiad. His current research interests are interdisciplinary, spanning molecular communications, wireless communication, complex systems, and the Internet of Everything (IoE).
Fourth-year Undergraduate Student, Middle East Technical University, Turkey
Email: so512[at]cam.ac.uk
Sude Özcan completed her high school education in İstanbul Capa Science High School and she is a fourth-year student pursuing a B.Sc. degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering at Middle East Technical University (METU), Ankara, Turkey. She is currently an undergraduate researcher in the Internet of Everything (IoE) Group under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Ozgur Baris Akan. Her research focuses on molecular and wireless communication systems, with a particular interest in modeling neurological diseases as end-to-end communication channels. She works on stochastic modeling, diffusion-based molecular communication channels, and synaptic-scale accumulation models that can enable early detection and intervention.
Alumni
- Dr. Dilara Aktas
- Hanlin Cai
- Zherong Zhang
- Dr. Beyza Ezgi Örtlek
- Hilal Esra Yaldiz
- Melih Şahin
- Fatih Efe Bilgen
- Dr. Kai Li
- Shaojie Zhang
- Dr. Meltem Civas
- Dr. Caglar Koca
- Dr. Tooba Khan
- Nafi Ahmet Turgut
- Dr. Muharrem Arik
- Dr. Naveed Ahmed Abbasi
- Dr. Turker Yilmaz
- Dr. Hamideh Ramezani
- Dr. Oktay Cetinkaya
- Dr. Ecehan B. Pehlivanoglu
- Dr. Bilgesu A. Bilgin
- Dr. Murat Kuscu
- Dr. Mustafa Ozger
- Dr. Ergin Dinc
- Dr. Ozgur Ergul
- Kardelen Cepni
- Orkhan Badirkhanli
- Bige Deniz Unluturk
- Deniz Kilinc
- Derya Malak
- Dr. Burhan Gulbahar
- Dr. Ghalib A. Shah
- Murat Kocaoglu
- Ahmet Ozan Bicen
- Dr. Baris Atakan
- Mert Can Oto
- Eren Balevi
- Ertan Gul
- Gokhan Isbitiren
- Muharrem Arik
- Ibrahim Karaaslan
- Mehmet Talha Isik
- Orhan Ayran
- Mehmet Yagli