Salih Okur received a BSc in physics (1989) from the Hacettepe University, Turkey, and a PhD in solid state physics (1998) from the Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, U.S. He worked as a research assistant (1993–2000), assistant professor (2000–2006), and associate professor (2006–20011) in the Department of Physics at the Izmir Institute of Technology, Turkey, before accepting a full professorship in the Department of Material Science and Engineering an the University of Katip Celebi, where he was the Dean of Engineering from 2011 to 2015. His research area comprises nanomaterials, surface modification, sensors, and QCM-based electronic noses. Between 2017 and 2020, he was a guest professor at the Light Technology Institute (LTI) of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), where he is now working as a research scientist at the Institute of Functional Interfaces.