He received his B.S. from Canakkale Onsekiz Mart University in Turkey in 2002, and his PhD from the University of New Orleans in 2001, both in computer science. His research focuses on the diversity and functioning of microbial communities in environments ranging from the human gastrointestinal tract and oral cavity, to sewages, oceans, and soils. He designs algorithms and experiments to better understand microbes and their ecology. He pursues interesting ecological and evolutionary questions, with some particularly interesting insights from molecular data into what constitutes a population in the microbial world.