Burcu Özsoy

Early life and education

Özsoy is a native of Turkey and graduated from Yıldız Technical University with degrees of Bachelor and Master in Geodesy-Photogrammetry Engineering. In 2001 she started serving as Research Assistant (RA) in Istanbul Technical University. In 2003 she joined the Remote Sensing and Geoinformatics Lab, Department of Geological Sciences at University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA). Özsoy always had an interest in statistical mathematics and geo-physical sciences and combined both fields by becoming a remote sensing expert. In 2005, she worked on her PhD at the UTSA. During her work there, she met key U.S. and other international scientists and institutions, including those who worked at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. She was interested in Antarctic remote sensing and looked forward to the chance to hop onto an icebreaker to cruise to Antarctica and see, feel, smell, hear, and taste Antarctic sea ice and landscape for the first time. She traveled to Antarctica in 2006. Inspired by this experience she doubled her forces and filled an important knowledge gap in remote sensing of Antarctic sea ice with her Ph.D. thesis.In 2007, she established American Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ASPRS) chapter in UTSA

Career and impact

While she was working on her Ph.D, she learned that communication across disciplines and across scientific knowledge levels is the key to make people understand new results and theories in the field of and the threats accompanied with climate change. Therefore, after having returned to Turkey in 2011, she worked hard against resistance and old-fashioned opinions to promote the importance of polar research in Turkey; from the 1st grade school kid to the well-established professor and up into the highest political levels. Her initiations also started public awareness about the importance of the Polar Regions. Many students that she has been giving lectures to, are now well aware of climate change and have done related researches for the first time in Turkey. She is the founder and director of Istanbul Technical University Polar Research Center (ITU PolReC) which is in charge of all polar sciences in Turkey. Its foundation is well in line with the scientifically rooted logical next step to contribute to Antarctic research with a Turkish research base in Antarctica for which she went back to Antarctica in March/April 2016. During that expedition, she was the deputy leader. She was also one of two women for the expedition and said that the two women scientists showed that Turkish women can accomplish anything. One of the projects she worked on during the expedition involved climate change. Also she was included Scientific Committee of International Circumpolar Observatory.

Awards and honours

Selected works