Sencer Yeralan

Sencer Yeralan is a systems scientist and registered engineer in the State of Florida (License #44202). He has made significant contributions to engineering and higher education, particularly in the fields of embedded control, sustainability engineering, and the philosophy of engineering.
==Early Life and Education==
Sencer Yeralan was born in 1955 in Kayseri, Türkiye, and moved to the United States at the age of four. He completed his high school education at Ankara Fen Lisesi and his undergraduate degree at Middle East Technical University in Türkiye.
==Academic and Professional Career==
Sencer Yeralan’s academic career spans over four decades, during which he has served as a professor, researcher, and administrator in higher education. As a junior faculty member in the mid-1980s at the University of Missouri-Columbia, he established the CAD/CAM laboratory, interfacing Timex-Sinclair computers with Fischertechnik models. In the 1990s, Yeralan established and directed the Industrial Research Laboratories under the motto “Industry-Need-Driven Research.” The laboratory conducted research funded by IBM, McDonnell Douglas, Microchip Technology, and the National Science Foundation. His work included the development of early hardware systems for microcontrollers, operating systems, compilers, and TCP/IP stacks. In the 2000s, Yeralan spent a year at Middle East Technical University, where he developed some of the earliest courses in Sustainable Systems Engineering. In the 2010s, as Associate Dean and later Interim Dean of the College of Innovation and Technology at USF Polytechnic –later renamed Florida Polytechnic University– several unique STEM programs were developed under his leadership.
In later years, Yeralan held deanships across multiple disciplines, including Engineering, Business, and Natural Sciences, on three different continents. His roles have significantly contributed to the development and growth of academic programs, particularly in engineering and business education.
==Contributions to Higher Education==
Sencer Yeralan has played a significant role in advancing higher education on a global scale. As of 2024, he serves as the CEO of Global Academics Coalition, a group of like-minded senior academic administrators that provides strategic-level consulting services to international universities. He is a proponent of Humboldtian educational values and has been a vocal critic of the corporatization of higher education. Yeralan’s work is characterized by a commitment to altruism and long-term institutional benefits, encouraging universities to prioritize enlightenment and intellectual growth over career-focused training.
==Research and Publications==
Sencer Yeralan’s research contributions span a wide range of fields, including abstract mathematics, social systems, clinical medicine, and even humor. He began his publishing career with some of the earliest textbooks in embedded control , and has since authored numerous works that are widely used in both academia and industry. Yeralan’s work is recognized for its interdisciplinary approach, often bridging gaps between seemingly unrelated fields to generate novel insights.
==Engineering==
Sencer Yeralan is credited with designing over 50 commercial products, primarily in deeply embedded systems for the automotive, industrial control, medical, and space sectors.
==Radio==
Sencer Yeralan has produced and hosted two university radio programs: Science and Society and Orbit.
==Philosophy and Influence==
Beyond his technical contributions, Sencer Yeralan has engaged deeply with philosophical questions, having taught philosophy and explored concepts such as consciousness, artificial life, and the singularity. His influence extends into areas like group psychology, particularly in the context of academic administration, where he has examined the evolution of collective human behavior from the 1960s to the present.
==Personal Life==
Outside his professional life, Sencer Yeralan has a wide range of interests, most notably in music and photography. He enjoys composing and performing live music. Yeralan is also an avid amateur radio enthusiast (KQ4UHH) and hobbyist, having built wireless systems during his teens. 
==Legacy==
Sencer Yeralan is widely regarded as a polymath, with Google identifying him as a mathematician due to his extensive contributions across various fields. His work continues to influence students, academics, and professionals globally, and his commitment to education and innovation remains a defining feature of his career. Many of Yeralan’s students have gone on to hold prominent positions in academia and business, extending his legacy across multiple disciplines.
==Books==
* 1995 - Programming and Interfacing 8031 Microcontrollers
* 1999 - The 8051 Cookbook for Assembly and C, with Experiments in Mechatronics and Robotics
* 2000 - Programming and Interfacing the 8051 Microcontroller in C, and Assembly
* 2003 - Internetworking Eight-Bit Microcontrollers: Fundamentals, and Applications with the 8051
* 2008 - Programming and Interfacing the ARM7TDMI, with the GNU Compiler Collection and the Eclipse IDE
* 2016 - An Introduction to Industrial Engineering, through Computation
* 2022 - Humor in Pedagogy in Tertiary Education in the Age of COVID-19: Bosnia in Comparative Perspective
* 2023 - Operational Amplifiers through Experimentation and Reflection - An Engineer’s Journey
Category:1955 births
Category:Systems scientists
Category:People from Kayseri
Category:American people