Founder & ML Researcher Building Emotion Machine — Turning Vision Research and Startup Experience into Products That Work
I'm a founder and machine learning researcher currently building Emotion Machine and hiring founding engineers. Before this, I spent five years as co-founder at Oda (YCombinator W20 batch), and prior to that worked as a Machine Learning Scientist at BlinkAI Technologies. My research roots are at MIT, where I earned two Master's degrees (Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and Design and Computation) while working as a Research Affiliate and Research Assistant at the Sinha Laboratory for Vision Research and the Civic Data Design Lab. I started out as an architect, with a Bachelor of Architecture from Istanbul Technical University and early experience at Alatas Architecture & Consulting, and even co-founded a student non-profit, Ölçek 1/1, building infrastructure projects in underserved regions. That path from architecture to vision science to AI and startups has given me a fairly unusual, hands-on blend of design sensibility, research rigor, and founder experience. I'm now looking to bring that combination to new clients and collaborators through Emotion Machine.
I help teams design and build machine learning powered products, drawing on experience as a Machine Learning Scientist at BlinkAI Technologies and as a founder building AI-driven ventures.
Having co-founded Oda (YC W20) and now Emotion Machine, I can advise on early-stage company building, from idea to product to fundraising.
With a background spanning MIT's Sinha Laboratory for Vision Research and Civic Data Design Lab plus formal architecture training, I bring a research-driven, human-centered approach to product and design problems.
My current venture, currently hiring founding engineers to build the product.
October 2025 - PresentCo-founded startup that went through the YCombinator W20 batch.
2020 - November 2025A non-profit student organization I co-founded, generating ideas, designs, and constructions in regions lacking infrastructure.
March 2007 - January 2009