Levent Beker got undergrad and master’s degrees in mechanical engineering and micro-nano technology from the Middle East Technical University (METU), Ankara, Turkey. For his master’s work on micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) cochlear implants, he received several awards including the outstanding paper award at Transducers’13 and the best thesis award from METU.

Then, he got his PhD in mechanical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley, U.S. (advisors: Prof. Liwei Lin, Prof. Al Pisano). During graduate work he was a researcher at Berkeley Sensor Actuator Center (BSAC), where he mainly worked on piezoelectric MEMS, their applications to implantable medical devices (neural implants), and harsh environment (silicon carbide-based) sensors supported by Sandia National Labs. His collaborative PhD work together with UCSF neurosurgeons received the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) International Students Fellowship. During PhD, he also worked as a research associate at Oculus VR/Facebook.

In 2017, he joined Prof. Zhenan Bao’s group at Stanford University where he worked on bioresorbable wireless implants and electronic skin components for two years. Afterwards, he gained some industrial experience at TDK InvenSense (San Jose, CA) within the MEMS motion sensors team.

In September 2019, Dr. Beker joined Koç University as an assistant professor and established the Bio-integrated microdevices laboratory. He received ERC Starting Grant in 2022, TUBITAK 2232 Fellowship in 2020 and Marie Curie Fellowship in 2019. He works on implantable and wearable medical devices using MEMS and flexible materials.