Work is not work, as far as Isil Nugay is concerned.
“Everyday I go to work, I actually say, ‘I’m going to school,’ because I keep learning, innovating,” says Nugay, who punctuates this sentence, as she does most of her conversation, with wide smiles. Her “schoolroom” just happens to be the sprawling campus of Apple Inc., headquartered in Cupertino, Calif., where she is a senior module process engineer.
That enthusiasm for innovating is what brought Nugay to The University of Akron, where she earned a Ph.D. in Polymer Engineering in 2014.
Nugay was first introduced to UA during an internship in the Department of Polymer Engineering while she was still a junior at Koc University in Istanbul, Turkey.
Isil Nugay returned to campus to deliver an Honors Leadership presentation.
Sets career course
Originally planning on a career in medicine, the experiential learning offered by her internship set Nugay on a new career course and sparked that desire “to be innovating.” So, after finishing work on a B.S. in Chemical and Biological Engineering in Turkey, she headed back to Akron.
“It was meant to be,” says Nugay of her choice. “I grew up in Belgium and my parents were faculty. Regulations are not so strict in Europe — you can bring your child to the lab,” she adds with a laugh. “I grew up in that environment. It was always a passion for me to watch my parents at work.”
During her graduate years, Nugay could most often be found in the National Polymer Innovation Center, which opened on campus in 2011. The center’s labs are equipped to aid UA researchers and their student teams in creating novel solutions to challenges faced by industry.
Isil Nugay is seen here in a lab in the National Polymer Innovation Center on campus.
“It is a wonderland,” recalls Nugay, who already has 10 publications and two patent applications to her credit. “You can play around with all those devices and then create new things. That’s quite a bit of joy.”
The opportunity to work, and learn, at Apple gives her that same sense of joy.
Always learning
“Just the entire innovative sense that everybody thinks differently — brainstorming as a team brings out great ideas,” says Nugay of the experience. It is a familiar way of working — one she came to know during regular brainstorming sessions with her advisor and mentor, Dr. Mukerrem Cakmak, and the other graduate students on his research team.
“The overall experience at The University of Akron was very, very positive,” Nugay affirms. “I got passionate about innovation here. I learned how to innovate. It was 50 percent creativity and 50 percent learning.
“Innovation is very intriguing. I would like to keep innovating for my entire career.”
Snapshot: Isil Nugay
- Earned a Ph.D. in Polymer Engineering at The University of Akron in 2014.
- Currently: Senior module process engineer at Apple Inc., in Cupertino, Calif.
- Isil returned to campus to speak to new students as part of UA's Honors Leadership Summits.
About this series
Incoming Honors College students got their first year here off to an inspiring start when four young alumni returned to speak to them as part of the Honors Leadership Summits. The annual program is hosted by the Institute for Leadership Advancement within the College of Business Administration. The institute is made possible through the generous support of The J.M. Smucker Company to promote the development of leaders with the unique combination of knowledge, skills and principles needed to make an impact on their organizations early in their careers. The summits have been generously supported by New Innovations.
Other speakers in the series:
- Lynn Lalley Wagers, organ procurement transplant coordinator at Lifebanc, Cleveland.
- Alex Modon, founder and CEO of Omni, Inc., San Francisco, Calif.
- Jon-Michael Durkin, head of Customer Success team at Infer, Mountain View, Calif.
Capping off the series as keynote speaker was Mark T. Smucker, president of consumer and natural foods at the J.M. Smucker Company.
In wide-ranging interviews before their presentations, each graduate talked about the value of his or her UA education. From mentors to motivations, from goal setting to overcoming fear and campus involvement, each shaped an Akron Experience that made them ready for everything that has followed.