Aykut Turfanda was born in Istanbul, Turkey in 1993. He holds two bachelor of science (B.Sc.) degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Physics Engineering from Istanbul Technical University. He holds a master of science (M.Sc.) degree in Physics from the Technical University of Munich. After spending a year as an experimental researcher at RWTH Aachen, he joined the Institute for Microelectronics in January 2020 as a Ph.D. student. His current research interests include density functional theory and defect engineering.