Dr. A. Emre Karatas

Ahmet Emre Karataş knows how influential a professor can be. After all, he lived that experience first-hand during his undergraduate propulsion course, where a hands-on instructor helped set the course for Karataş’s career in gas turbine combustion. “I was really excited by engines, how multidisciplinary the field is,” he recalls.

That excitement lives on today, an age in which combustion of hydrocarbon fuels lies at the centre of daily climate change discourse. The urgent need to solve the energy problem is what keeps Karataş motivated. “For civilization to keep going, we need energy, but no one has a solution so far. I see a lot of potential every day in this field, and that really inspires me.” He envisions a future in which cleaner combustion technologies are more important than ever before, and also foresees opportunity in emerging technologies like combustion-generated materials.

While a vision of years to come is what motivates him, Karataş doesn’t lose sight of his past. Now on the other side of the lectern, he hopes to continue to inspire students through teaching. Of the students he’s helped supervise, he says, “I think, in a way, although small, I helped them achieve their goals. That’s extremely fulfilling.”