2009 Turkish Academy of Sciences - Miral Dizdar

Dr. Miral Dizdar, a NIST Fellow has been elected to the Turkish Academy of Sciences as a principal member. The Academy states that a principal member is elected from among distinguished scientists of Turkish origin, and that the conditions for being elected are: "to have received awards or medals from respectable national or international institutions; to have discoveries, inventions, theories and models named after himself or herself, and/or to have been cited in textbooks or review articles and to have a high number of generally accepted cited references in international science citation indices." The number of the principal members cannot exceed 2 percent of the university professors in Turkey. At present, there are 81 Principal Members, 34 Honorary Members and 17 associate members of the Turkish Academy of Sciences.

Dr. Dizdar's scientific work has had a major impact in the area of DNA damage and repair, and its role in diseases such as cancer and age-related diseases. He published more than 200 peer-reviewed papers. These publications attracted wide attention in his field of science, and received more than 11,000 citations in the scientific literature. Dr. Dizdar's other scientific awards include the Hillebrand Prize of the American Chemical Society (1989), the Science Award of the Turkish Scientific and Technological Council (1993), the Silver Medal Award of the US Department of Commerce (1993), the Turkish-American of the Year Award of the Assembly of the Turkish-American Associations (1993), an Honorary Doctorate (Doctor Honoris Causa) from the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Poland (2000), the Outstanding Achievement in Science Award of the Assembly of the Turkish-American Associations (2001) and the Gold Medal Award of the US Department of Commerce (2005).