Turkish Translation Project
The Turkish Content Project was initiated by Melis Çakar (neuroscience Ph.D. candidate in neuroscience at UCLA and Knowing Neurons member) and Sedef Şeker (high school teacher of English and AP Psychology at Hisar High School in Istanbul). The project started in September 2023 with the goal of encouraging high school students to learn about neuroscience and making neuroscience accessible to Turkish speakers around the globe. The project aims both to translate existing articles, infographics and other written materials from English to Turkish, and to create original content in Turkish.
The Turkish Content Project is led by Melis Çakar, a native Turkish speaker, and has two main branches:
The first branch includes native Turkish-speaking undergraduate students who translate Knowing Neurons articles from English to Turkish. This branch is led by Saba Eylül Öztürk, a member of the Knowing Neurons team and an undergraduate student at Üsküdar Üniversity in Istanbul, Türkiye.
The second branch of the project includes high school students. We have established a collaboration with Hisar School in Istanbul, Türkiye for this project. Hisar high school students translate infographics (such as those from Knowing Neurons’ 52 Brain Facts and Weird Brain Animals infographic series) from English to Turkish, under the supervision of teachers, Sedef Şeker and Emine Ulusoy (biology teacher at Hisar High School).
We are excited that the students who are part of this project are benefiting from the process as they learn neuroscience through engaging with the neuroscience content on the Knowing Neurons website. They are also exercising the skill of scientific literacy in both languages!
Future directions for this project will include the creation of original neuroscience content in Turkish, such as interviews and reflections, as well as outreach projects led by undergraduate and high school students. Through these efforts, we aim the students to broaden their understanding of neuroscience and engage in creative science communication.
Hisar School
Hisar School is a K-12 school located in Istanbul, Türkiye. The school offers classes in both Turkish and English. Hisar School partners with Knowing Neurons for the Turkish Content Project. High school students from Hisar translate neuroscience-related infographics from English to Turkish and will be sharing original content in Turkish on Knowing Neurons in the future.
Hisar Teachers
Emine Ulusoy
Emine is a Biology teacher at Hisar School. She received her BA in Biology Teacher Education from Marmara University and her Master’s in Marine Biology from Istanbul University. Emine recruits students for the project, supervises students in making translations, along with Sedef, and examines their translations for their scientific accuracy.
Sedef Şeker
Sedef is an English and AP Psychology teacher at Hisar High School. She received her BA in English and Economics with a minor in Music from Tufts University, and completed her Master’s in Education at Harvard University. Sedef leads the high school branch of the Turkish Content Project. Along with Emine, she recruits students for the project, supervises students in making translations and assesses translation quality.
Knowing Neurons Members
Melis Cakar
Melis is a PhD Candidate in Neuroscience at UCLA. Melis grew up in Istanbul, Türkiye. She received her BA in Neuroscience from Pomona College with a minor in French. She currently studies the role of the cerebellum in sensory processing in autism spectrum disorder. Melis oversees the Turkish Content Project and evaluates translation quality for scientific content and language.
Saba Eylül Özyurt
Eylül is an undergraduate student at Üsküdar University in Istanbul, Türkiye. She is majoring in Molecular Biology and Genetics, with a minor in Psychology. She is currently working at the Neurochemistry Laboratory of Üsküdar University, focusing on neurodegenerative diseases and is planning to specialize in Behavioral Neuroscience in the future. Eylül leads the undergraduate branch of the Turkish Translation Content project and translates neuroscience articles from English to Turkish with her team.