
Prof. Dr. Nafiz Arıca
Nafiz Arıca received his Bachelor’s degree in Electrical-Electronics from the Naval Academy in 1991. Afterward, he served as a communication and operations officer in the Turkish Naval Forces for four years. In 1995, he joined the Computer Engineering Department at the Middle East Technical University (METU), where he completed both his Master’s and Ph.D. degrees. In 1998, his thesis was awarded as the Thesis of the Year at METU. Between 2006 and 2008, he conducted postdoctoral research at the Beckman Institute at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, IL, and at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA, in the Department of Computer Science. From 2004 to 2013, he worked as a faculty member and department head at the Computer Engineering Department of the Naval Academy.
Later, he started working as a faculty member in the Computer Engineering Department at Bahçeşehir University’s Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences. Nafiz Arıca also served as the Director of the Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences for four years and was the Dean of the Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences. On September 16, 2022, upon the recommendation of the Board of Trustees of Piri Reis University, he began serving as the Acting Rector, and on March 14, 2023, he was appointed as the Rector. His current research focuses on artificial intelligence, machine learning, and computer vision, including object detection, recognition, and tracking, path planning for UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles), and facial expression analysis. He is a member of IEEE and ACM. He is also a member of the International Management Board of IAMU (International Association of Maritime Universities). Prof. Dr. Nafiz Arıca played for the Turkish Naval Forces Volleyball team for 25 years and was part of the National Team five times.