(The following is the obituary notice written by Mahmut Kuzucuoğlu in 2010)

Prof. Dr. Cemal Koç was born in Kırcaeli (Bulgaria) on 24th April 1941. He graduated from "Tokat İlköğretmen Okulu" and started to "Ankara Yüksek Öğretmen Okulu". He graduated from Ankara University Science Faculty, Mathematics-Astronomy Department in 1963. The same year he started his graduate studies in Ege University in İzmir and he obtained his Ph.D degree in mathematics in 1969, from the same department. Then, in the same year, he became a member of the newly established Middle East Technical University in Ankara. In 1970, he became an assistant professor and, in 1978, an associate professor. In 1990, he became a full professor at Middle East Technical University.

In 1971, he visited London University where he first met with Prof. O. H. Kegel with the support of a NATO Overseas research grant.

The 1980's was a difficult time for many people in Turkey and he was not exceptional. On 1st March 1983, he was forced to leave by the coup government because of the law number 1402.

He had to leave university for six years, which was very difficult for him because he was away from research during this period. He returned to his job at Middle East Technical University on 1st March 1989, to the same office which he had left 6 years ago, after the country started down a path of increasing democracy. After 1992, he worked in the mathematics department of East Mediterranean University in Northern Cyprus for two years.

He retired from Middle East Technical University in 1999, and then, with his family, he moved to Istanbul and started to work at Doğuş University. He was one of the founders and a chairman of the mathematics department in Doğuş University. He served as the dean at Doğuş University in 2006. 

He is the author of the following books which are used as textbooks in many universites in Turkey:

  • Soyut Cebir (Joint with M. Bilhan, İ. Ş. Güloğlu ),
  • Topics in Linear Algebra,
  • Basic Linear Algebra.

He retired from Doğuş University due to health problems in February 2010. He passed away on 1st April 2010. He had three daughters, Esin, Ekin and Evin with his wife Rukiye Koç.

Research Papers:

  • Güloğlu, İ. Ş.; Koç, C. Stack-sortable permutations and polynomials. Turkish J. Math. 33 (2009), no. 1, 1-8.
  • Koç, Cemal; Esin, Songül Annihilators of principal ideals in the exterior algebra. Taiwanese J. Math. 11 (2007), no. 4, 1019-1035.
  • Koç, Cemal Professor Masatoshi Gündüz Ikeda: a life devoted to mathematics. Turkish J. Math. 27 (2003), no. 4, 461-471.
  • Koç, Cemal; Esin, Songul Annihilators of principal ideals in the Grassmann algebra. Applications of geometric algebra in computer science and engineering (Cambridge, 2001), 193--194, Birkhäuser Boston, Boston, MA, 2002.
  • Koç, Cemal Recurring-with-carry sequences. J. Appl. Probab. 32 (1995), no. 4, 966-971.
  • Koç, C. Clifford algebras of d-forms. Turkish J. Math. 19 (1995), no. 3, 301-313.
  • Kaya, A.; Koç, C. Semicentralizing automorphisms of prime rings. Acta Math. Acad. Sci. Hungar. 38 (1981), no. 1-4, 53-55.
  • Kaya, A.; Koç, C. Remarks on some commutativity theorems. İstanbul Üniv. Fen Fak. Mecm. Ser. A 40 (1975), 1-3 (1978).
  • Ikeda, Masatoshi; Koç, Cemal On the commutator ideal of certain rings. Arch. Math. (Basel) 25 (1974), 348--353.
  • Koç, Cemal A note on the commutativity of rings. METU J. Pure Appl. 6 (1973), no. 2, 127-129.
  • Ikeda, Masatoshi; Koç, Cemal On generalized Clifford algebras. J. Algebra 23 (1972), 133-136.
  • Koç, Cemal On a generalization of Clifford algebras. J. Algebra 18 1971 447-452.

Ph.D. Students:

  • Abdullah Harmancı, Bazı Kommutatiflik Teoremleri, Hacettepe University, 1974.
  • Yosum Kurtulmaz, Structure Theory of Zp-central Simple Graded Algebras, METU, 1988.

M.Sc. Students:

  • M. Soytürk, P-adic Fonksiyonlar, Selçuk University, 1979.
  • S. Yassin, Pro C-Groups, METU, 1981.
  • Yosum Kurtulmaz , Galois Calculus and Generalized Drinfeld Modules, METU, 1992.
  • A. Berrin Nalbantoğlu, Cliffords-Littlewood-Eckmann Groups, METU, 1997.
  • Fatih Koyuncu, Some invariants of fields, METU, 1999.
  • Fethiye Akbulut, Azumaya Algebras Arising from Clifford Algebras, METU, 1996.

Last Updated:
26/04/2019 - 14:41