I first met Cemal Koc during Spring semester of 1977. He was then a young associate professor at the Middle East Technical University, Ankara, and I was a . student attending his graduate course on noncommutative rings. | Turk J Math 34 (2010) , 433 – 440. ¨ ITAK ˙ c TUB doi: A short survey on mathematical work of Cemal Ko¸ c ˙ Ismail S¸. G¨ ulo˘glu I first met Cemal Ko¸c during Spring semester of 1977. He was then a young associate professor at the Middle East Technical University, Ankara, and I was a . student attending his graduate course on noncommutative rings. I had previously attended lectures in Germany given by leading experts on several topics in algebra, yet the course I took that year from Cemal Ko¸c was the one that has left a strong impression on me as a live example of how one should lecture and teach. Later, on many other occasions, I had the chance to observe his enthusiasm for and dedication to teaching. Being a first grade researcher as well, he possessed a combination of talents that one does not find very often. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to give you a taste of what his teaching was like but instead I shall try to summarize his mathematical research. Cemal Ko¸c was born in Kırcaali, Bulgaria, in 1943. After a short while, he and his family had to immigrate to Turkey. His family struggled through many economic problems and they had to move a lot, which affected his education as well. It started in Samsun, then continued in Tokat for a while, and ended in 1963 with his graduation from the department of mathematics and astronomy of Ankara University. After graduation he began work as a math teacher in a high school. But immediately he realized he would not be happy and efficient there. In the same year he started to work as an assistant professor in the department of mathematics at Ege University. This was the beginning of his academic career in mathematics. In his ., Cemal Ko¸c worked on a problem in differential geometry under the supervision of Muzaffer Kula and completed it in 1968. His thesis, which is also his first academic work, is entitled “n-boyutlu uzayda bir e˘grinin ardı¸sık osk¨ ulator k¨ ure merkezlerinin limiti ve .
