Prof. Dr. Derek Baker is a Full Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Middle East Technical University (METU). He is the Lead Researcher in the Concentrating Solar Thermal (CST) Division "ODAK" that is part of ODTU-The Center for Solar Energy Research and Applications (ODTU-GUNAM). He received his BS from Virginia Tech in 1992 and his MS and PhD from The University of Texas-Austin in 1996 and 2000, respectively, all in Mechanical Engineering. Currently, he is coordinating the EU Horizon Europe (HE) SolarHub project and leading ODTU-GUNAM's contributions to the EU HE CST4ALL project. Previously, he coordinated the EU Horizon 2020 SolarTwins project. He is currently / has previously contributed to the following EU projects: SOLARIZE, GeoSmart, SFERA-III, HORIZON-STE, INSHIP, and EU-SOLARIS. He regularly serves as an independent expert for the evaluation of EU research proposals. He was twice named METU Educator of the Year (2003–4 and 2005–6), and in 2013 was named METU Outstanding Educator, which is METU's highest and terminal teaching award.