Who is Celal Sengor?

Ali Mehmet Celâl Şengör (born 24 March 1955) is a Turkish academic and geologist. He was born in Istanbul as the child of a Rumelian immigrant family.

Şengör is a member of the US National Academy of Sciences, the American Philosophical Society and the Russian Academy of Sciences. He is the second Turkish professor elected to the Russian Academy of Sciences after Mehmet Fuat Köprülü. Şengör was awarded the Gustav Steinmann Medal by the German Geological Society. Şengör, who worked as a visiting professor in France, the United Kingdom, Austria and the United States, became famous for his studies in geology, especially in structural earth science and tectonic. In 1988, he received an honorary doctorate of science from the Faculty of Science at the University of Neuchâtel. Şengör was accepted to Academia Europaea in 1990 and became a correspondent member of the Austrian Geological Service in the same year, and an honorary member of the Austrian Geological Society in 1991. He also won the Information Age Award of the Ministry of Culture in 1991. In 1992, he became a professor at Istanbul Technical University, Mining Faculty, General Geology Department.

Şengör gave his last lecture at Istanbul Technical University on March 23, 2022 and retired on March 24, 2022.

He started his education in the primary school of Şişli Terakki High School, but was expelled from school in the 5th grade for insulting his teacher. Later, he was enrolled in Bayezid Primary School and completed primary school there. Although he took the exams of private schools after he finished primary school, he could not win any of them, and according to Şengör, he entered Işık High School Secondary School with a torpedo. After finishing secondary school at Işık, he passed the exams of Robert College in 1969. He graduated in 1973 with the lowest possible GPA of the D average. After graduating from Robert College, he went to America. He started his undergraduate education at the University of Houston in 1972, but due to the low quality of the school according to Şengör, he transferred to Albany after 2,5 years (1976). He completed the geology department at the State University of New York in Albany in 1978. He completed his master's degree in 1979 at the same university with his thesis titled “Geometry and Kinematics of Continental Deformation in Zones of Collision: Examples from Central Europe and Eastern Mediterranean”. Three years later (3) he received his doctorate from the same school with his doctoral thesis titled “The geology of the Albula Pass area, eastern Switzerland in its Tethyan setting: Palaeo-Tethyan factor in Neo-Tethyan opening”.

Academic career
In 1981, he started to work as an assistant in the general geology department at the Mining Faculty of Istanbul Technical University. He received the Presidential Award of the London Geological Society in 1984 and the TUBITAK Science Award in 1986. In the same year, he became an associate professor in the Department of General Geology at the Mining Faculty of Istanbul Technical University. In 1988, he received an honorary doctorate of science (Docteur ès sciences honoris causa) from the Faculty of Science at the University of Neuchâtel. He was accepted to Academia Europaea in 1990 and became the first Turkish member of the society. He became a correspondent member of the Austrian Geological Service in the same year, and an honorary member of the Austrian Geological Society in 1991. Again in 1991, he won the "information age award" of the Ministry of Culture.

In 1992, he was promoted to professor in the Department of General Geology at the Mining Faculty of Istanbul Technical University. In 1993, he became the youngest founding member of the Turkish Academy of Sciences and was elected to the academy council. In the same year, he became a member of TÜBİTAK Science Board. In 1994, he was elected a member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences and an honorary member of the French and American geological societies. He was also awarded the Rammal Medal by the French Physical Society and the École Normale Supérieure Foundation. Şengör was honored with the grand prize (Lutaud Award) in geosciences by the French Academy of Sciences in 1997. In May 1998, Şengör obtained a chair at the Collège de France as a visiting professor. Here he gave a lecture on “The contribution of French geologists to the development of tectonics in the 19th century” and received the Collège de France's medal on 28 May 1998. In 1999 the Geological Society of London awarded him the Bigsby Medal. In April 2000, he became the first Turk to be elected as a foreign member of the United States National Academy of Sciences. He is the second Turk to be elected to the Russian Academy of Sciences after Fuad Köprülü. He was also elected as a member of the Leopoldina Academy of Nature Researchers in 2013.

Şengör is famous for his studies in geology, especially in structural geology and tectonic. He revealed the effect of strip continents on the structure of mountain belts and discovered a strip continent, which he called the Cimmerian Continent. He revealed the geological structure of Central Asia and solved the issue of how the continent-continent collision affected the front countries. Together with Yücel Yılmaz, he wrote an article evaluating Turkey's place in plate tectonics and became a citation classic. He has published 6 books, 175 scientific articles, 137 abstracts of papers, many popular science articles, two books on history and philosophy, and nearly 300 essays on geology and tectonic subjects. Şengör, who is a member of the academies of sciences of the USA, Russia, Europe and Germany, has 1826 published articles and 12658 references have been made to these articles. The ones that appeared in the "Zümrütten Akisler" column in Cumhuriyet Bilim Teknik magazine between 1997-1998 were published as a book by Yapı Kredi Publications in 1999 under the title "Zümrütname".

Şengör, who has been a visiting professor in France, the United Kingdom, Austria and the United States, has worked at Oxford (with the Royal Society Research Fellowship) in the United Kingdom, the California Institute of Technology (as a Moore Distinguished Scholar) in the USA and the Collège de France. He was visiting professor at the University of Salzburg Lodron-Paris in Austria. Şengör has also worked as an editor, associate editor and member of the editorial board in many international journals.

Although Celal Şengör declares that he knows an advanced level of English, French and German; He also said that he could read Dutch, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and Ottoman Turkish.

In a video that appeared on September 16, 2021, "A student of mine got so angry; I lifted her skirt, I slapped her ass. This horrified. I looked at him like this. I said look at me, did your father do this? He told me that even my father did not do this. Heh, I said, it was incomplete, now it is completed”. These statements of Şengör were echoed by the public as harassment. His student did not have any public complaints. Istanbul Technical University rectorate announced that it has launched an administrative investigation against Şengör. As a result of the investigation made by Istanbul Technical University, it was decided that there was no reason to impose an administrative penalty. Şengör retired from ITU on 23 March 2022 due to age.

Şengör is famous for his studies in geology, especially structural geology and tectonic. 17 books, 262 scientific articles, 217 abstracts of papers, 74 popular science articles on this subject; He has published 13 popular books on history and philosophy and more than 500 essays. The ones that appeared in the "Zümrütten Akisler" column in Cumhuriyet Bilim Teknik magazine between 1997-1998 were published in a book under the title of Zümrütname in 1999 by Yapı Kredi Culture and Art Publications. In 2003, his second essay book was published with the title of Emerald Mirror. His life story was published under the title of A Scientist's Adventure in the River Conversation series of Türkiye İş Bankası Culture Publications in 2010. Şengör has also worked as an editor, associate editor and member of the editorial board in many international journals.

Şengör discovered a land unlike the continents of the Tethys period and named it the Cimmerian Continent.

Family
Şengör married Oya Maltepe in 1986. His only child, HC Asım Şengör, was born in 1989.

geology curiosity
How his interest in geology started is explained in the book titled “A Scientist's Adventure”, and Şengör's “I started to love geology from a young age, that is, from the day I read Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth. I just read Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. After reading that too, I thought to myself, 'To be a man means to be as Jules Verne describes it'. Jules Verne made me love geology…”. In an interview, he said that he has over 30.000 books in his library.

Health situation
Celal Şengör was diagnosed with mild Asperger's and he describes it with these words: “I am also a person diagnosed with mild Aschberger. And I am grateful for this feature. If I weren't autistic, I wouldn't have achieved the success I have achieved in science.”

religious belief
Celal Şengör has stated many times in the programs he attends that he is an atheist.