Betül Tanbay (born 1960) is a Turkish

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, mathematical structure, structure, space, Mathematica ...

scientist A scientist is a person who Scientific method, researches to advance knowledge in an Branches of science, area of the natural sciences. In classical antiquity, there was no real ancient analog of a modern scientist. Instead, philosophers engag ...

and professor of mathematics at the

Boğaziçi University Boğaziçi University (Turkish language, Turkish: ''Boğaziçi Üniversitesi''), also known as Bosphorus University, is a Public university, public research university in Istanbul, Turkey, historically tied to a former American educational insti ...

Istanbul Istanbul is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, constituting the country's economic, cultural, and historical heart. With Demographics of Istanbul, a population over , it is home to 18% of the Demographics ...

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

and the first woman president of the Turkish Mathematical Society between 2010 and 2016.

Education

Betül Tanbay was born in Istanbul and raised in

Ankara Ankara is the capital city of Turkey and List of national capitals by area, the largest capital by area in the world. Located in the Central Anatolia Region, central part of Anatolia, the city has a population of 5,290,822 in its urban center ( ...

until 1977. She graduated from the

Lycée Janson de Sailly In France, secondary education is in two stages: * ''Collèges'' () cater for the first four years of secondary education from the ages of 11 to 14. * ''Lycées'' () provide a three-year course of further secondary education for students between ...

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in 1978. She received her Licence en Mathématiques from Université Louis Pasteur,

Strasbourg Strasbourg ( , ; ; ) is the Prefectures in France, prefecture and largest city of the Grand Est Regions of France, region of Geography of France, eastern France, in the historic region of Alsace. It is the prefecture of the Bas-Rhin Departmen ...

in 1982, and her PhD in Mathematics under the supervision of

Robert Solovay Robert Martin Solovay (born December 15, 1938) is an American mathematician working in set theory. Biography Solovay earned his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1964 under the direction of Saunders Mac Lane, with a dissertation on ''A F ...

at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

in the

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in 1989.

Academic career

She has been a full time member and chairwoman in the Department of Mathematics, at Boğaziçi University, Istanbul. She has been the Vice-Provost for Foreign Affairs and represented her university at the

European University Association The European University Association (EUA) represents more than 800 institutions of higher education in 48 countries, providing them with a forum for cooperation and the exchange of information on higher education and research policies. Members of ...

between 2004 and 2007. She is the founding codirector of the Istanbul Center for Mathematical Sciences (IMBM). She has been in the scientific boards of research institutes such as IMBM, Feza Gürsey Institute, Institut d'Etudes Avancées - Aix Marseille (IMéRA). She was the director of a leading doctoral network project of

TÜBİTAK The Scientific and Technological Research Institution of Turkey (, TÜBİTAK) is a national agency of Turkey whose stated goal is to develop "science, technology and innovation" (STI) policies, support and conduct research and development, and to ...

between 2008 and 2012. She has worked as an executive committee member, including presidency, at the Turkish Mathematical Society; as delegate, Ethics Committee member, Raising Awareness Committee member, Executive Committee member at the

European Mathematical Society The European Mathematical Society (EMS) is a European organization dedicated to the development of mathematics in Europe. Its members are different mathematical societies in Europe, academic institutions and individual mathematicians. The curren ...

where she was elected vice-president for the 2019-2022 period; and as delegate, member of the Committee for Women in Mathematics at the

International Mathematical Union The International Mathematical Union (IMU) is an international organization devoted to international cooperation in the field of mathematics across the world. It is a member of the International Science Council (ISC) and supports the International ...

(IMU). In 2025 she was appointed as the Chair of the Governing Board of the IMU-IDM (International Day of Mathematics).IMU-International Day of Mathematics
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Visiting positions

She has held visiting positions at UC Berkeley and

UC Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Tracing its roots back to 1891 as an independent teachers college, UCSB joined ...

Université de Bordeaux The University of Bordeaux (, ) is a public research university based in Nouvelle-Aquitaine in southwestern France. It has several campuses in the cities and towns of Bordeaux, Dax, Gradignan, Périgueux, Pessac, and Talence. There are also ...

, Institut de Mathématiques de Jussieu,

University of Kansas The University of Kansas (KU) is a public research university with its main campus in Lawrence, Kansas, United States. Two branch campuses are in the Kansas City metropolitan area on the Kansas side: the university's medical school and hospital ...

Pennsylvania State University The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) is a Public university, public Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related Land-grant university, land-grant research university with campuses and facilities throughout Pennsyl ...

and joined the Kadison-Singer Conjecture Workshop at the

American Institute of Mathematics The American Institute of Mathematics (AIM) is one of nine mathematical institutes in the United States, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). It was founded in 1994 by John Fry, co-founder of Fry's Electronics, and originally located ...

Research areas

Her research interests include operator algebras and set theory.

Representative scientific journal publications

* C. Akemann, J. Anderson, B. Tanbay, ''Weak Paveability And The Kadison-Singer Problem'', Journal of Operator Theory, vol. 71, no. 1, pp. 295–300 (2014). * B. Tanbay, A ''Letter on the Kadison-Singer problem'', Revue Roumaine des Mathématiques Pures et Appliquées, vol. 59, no. 2, pp. 293–302 (2014). http://imar.ro/journals/Revue_Mathematique/pdfs/2014/2/10.pdf * C. Akemann, J. Anderson, B. Tanbay, ''The Kadison-Singer problem for the direct sum of matrix algebras'', Positivity, vol. 16, no. 1, pp 53–66 (2012). https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2Fs11117-010-0109-1.pdf * C. Akemann, B. Tanbay, A. Ülger ''A Note On The Kadison-Singer Problem'', Journal of Operator Theory, vol. 63, no. 2, 363–274 (2010).

References

External links

Betül Tanbay's professional home page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tanbay, Betül Turkish mathematicians 1960 births Living people Women mathematicians Academic staff of Boğaziçi University Lycée Janson-de-Sailly alumni People from Ankara Scientists from Istanbul University of California, Berkeley alumni Turkish women mathematicians