Born in Turkey but raised in Bulgaria, I come from a multi-cultural family. In addition to Bulgarian and Turkish, I grew up speaking Russian too, which I learned at school. My passion for connecting with peoples and cultures took me to Duino (Italy), where I attended the United World College of the Adriatic (UWC Adriatic) on a partial merit and need-based scholarship.
I then moved to London, UK, to pursue my undergraduate studies at University College London (UCL) on a privately funded full merit scholarship. Second in my finalist cohort, I graduated with first-class MSci in Computational Biology. During my time there, I engaged with the student community by being a student representative, a student-staff integration ambassador, and a transition mentor, helping first-year students adapt to UCL. I also volunteered with UCL Marrow, the student branch of the blood cancer charity Anthony Nolan, and was a Science Executive for the UCL Data Science Society, developing and delivering beginner and intermediate Python for Data Science programming workshops.
Before starting my PhD, I worked as a Data Scientist at Big Data Institute in Oxford, where I modelled different vaccination strategies against neglected tropical diseases.
I am currently pursuing my PhD in Computational Biology at EPFL in Lausanne, Switzerland on a Swiss Government Excellence Scholarship.